


Beloved (we meet again and again)

by cynassa



Category: Doctor Who, Supernatural
Genre: M/M, Superwho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-09
Updated: 2012-06-09
Packaged: 2017-11-07 14:20:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 47,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/432098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cynassa/pseuds/cynassa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stories about Sam and Gabriel ranging from less than a hundred words to a short story. </p><p>Preview: <em>It's a Saturday morning thing. Waking up at 11 and Gabriel snapping up breakfast in bed for them (and one of these days Sam is going to ask how that doesn't violate the law of conservation of energy but not today) and having sticky pancakes and crispy bacon off each others' plates.</em></p><p>Note: There's only one chapter which is edited more-or-less everyday to include a new piece.<br/>There is no rape/non-con, or underage content.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beloved (we meet again and again)

**Author's Note:**

> I'm doing a ridiculously specific self-created challenge because Sabriel ate my brain. 
> 
> 365 days of Sam/Gabriel- Upto 9th June 2013 I'll be posting up a piece of work centred around Sam/Gabriel every day. Or trying to at least.
> 
> So I'll be editing this (most likely every day) to add in the day's piece. Wish me luck!
> 
> At any point of time, this work is complete in itself.

1.  
And after he’s shifted off Sam and collapsed on the bed, stretching out to savor the stretch in his muscles because _damn_ that was good, Sam sits up.

Sam’s covered in Gabriel’s spunk and his own, and sweat and spit, and still doesn’t look naked until he looks Gabriel in the eye and then he is more naked than Gabriel can stand.

Then he says in a voice hoarse from screaming, “Please, you gotta give me back my brother.”

 

2.  
Finger trails across his cheek, the feeling of a hand on his thigh (curl of arousal in his belly). A kiss on the back of his neck (makes him want to melt). Lips suck on his nipples and a hint of teeth (takes him from half-relaxed arousal to whimpering). Tease of hands and lips across his cock...

And Sam jerks up from his chair without bothering to shut his laptop and grabs Gabriel where he is sitting on the bed and stops his burst of laughter with a hard kiss and they tumble down, Sam covering Gabriel and their legs tangled together.

 

3.  
It's a Saturday morning thing. Waking up at 11 and Gabriel snapping up breakfast in bed for them (and one of these days Sam is going to ask how that doesn't violate the law of conservation of energy but not today) and having sticky pancakes and crispy bacon off each others' plates.

Then Sam will make some token noises about getting out of bed and Gabriel will be indignant about the romance being gone and Sam will tell him that, seriously, when you've 'wooed' someone by turning their laptop into a panda you don't get to complain about romance.

Gabriel will, naturally, take it as a challenge and proceed to take Sam apart with hands and lips and cock and he knows, Christ, he knows the right spots to lick and the slow rhythm of thrusts that will have Sam cursing and begging and falling apart like it's the first time, every time. It's ok, because that's what Sam was aiming for anyway.

Then they're fucked out and Gabriel will just collapse on top of Sam and in a few minutes they'll forget the mess and fall asleep and Sam will think, this is it. This right here, this is his bit of Grace.

 

4.  
Loki sprawls back in his chair, takes up as much space as a human twice his size would (but then he’s not human is he?) and the fresh strawberry pie with strawberry sauce is good enough that he thinks he’s going to hang around for a little bit. There must be lots of stuff for him to- heh- sink his teeth into in a bustling city like this. Besides, he’s done some of his best work on university campuses. He twirls his fork then digs in.

First bite.

There’re two frat boys throwing stones at a freshman.

Second bite.

There’s a boy with a knife and a picture of the prostitute he’s been stalking for the past few weeks.

Third bite.

There’s a professor with her student, hiking up her shirt and saying, silkily, “I can’t just give you an extension, not unless I judge your previous _performance_ adequate.”

Fourth bite.

There’s a witch summoning his tools for his planned slaughter and mayhem…and screaming when the tools turn to dust and take him with them.

Loki opens his eyes, and thinks, _hunter_. A clever one, with a poetic sense of justice.  
“Can I get you something else?”

Loki looks up, and there’s a boy, tall as a tree, with green eyes and a dimpled smile and a warm soul. And traces of the magic of the witch that just died. He swallows and smiles, “I’ll be ok as soon as I get your name.”

The boy raises an eyebrow in an amused manner and says, “My name?”

“Well, I could just ask for the gentle giant when I come in tomorrow but it lacks a certain something, don’tcha think?”

The boy laughs and says, “I’m Sam Winchester.”

Sam Winchester, Loki commits the name to memory along with bright eyes and a blazing smile. When he’s leaving, he hears Sam say, “Hey…uh, what’s yours? Your name, I mean.”

After millennia, there’s no reason for it to even occur to him, but he suddenly wants to hear his name again and so he says, “Gabriel, they call me Gabriel.”

And Sam says, “Gabriel,” lazily, as if tasting it on his tongue and smiles at him and… Gabriel smiles back.

 

5.

_three years ago-  
"So, this is what you do then? Go around in your spaceship, TARDIS right? and..."_

_"And I watch history being made."_

_"Watch? Dude, you weren't doing all that much watching."_

_"So you and your knuckleheaded brother decided to try staking me. Ok, so on occasion I do a little more than watching, but those guys? Take it from me- they deserved it."_  
//  
three years, six months and two weeks ago-

_"Is...is it always this dangerous?" Sam asked, gasping for breath._

_"Hells, yeah. Enjoyed yourself?" the Doctor replied, waggling his eyebrows  
ridiculously._

_Sam looked at him from under his bangs, and then grinned suddenly, "You know what? I did."_  
//  
two years ago-

_"You could stay, go to college. Be a hotshot lawyer like you always wanted," the Doctor said, looking at his twizzler instead of at Sam._

_Dean's outside the hospital room, waiting for him, and he's going to ask Sam to stay-the way he always did._

_Sam said, "I'm going. You don't get to leave me behind," and asked Dean to come with them instead._  
//  
eight hours ago-

"This way," Sam called, and they fall into a familiar rhythm of running, the Doctor taking two steps for every one of Sam's. Sam led him to a patch of wall that...looked exactly the same as every other patch of wall.

"There's a lock or something over here, leads into the motherboard of the ship, we can take control of the weapons system from there." Sam explained making a square with his hands to show exactly which place had the lock.

The screwdriver did its work, and the motherboard was a piece of cake, the Doctor's seen exactly the same system on Planet Xakaria, Solar System Tu-21B in galaxy N2C2E.

Once they had control of the weapons system, the big blue aliens and the big dark-blue aliens agreed to a truce (they're never little except that one time on the planet inhabited by -in Deanspeak- Moby Grapes, and yeah, they don't talk about that; repression and denial isn't healthy until they really, really are.)

After seven hours of talk, the aliens manage to reach a decision. That is, that they would quite like to continue fighting. So the Doctor got a little snap-happy, the way he always does when deciding that someone was being a pompous ass and Sam loomed a little, which he always does, regardless of intent and the aliens just sort-of decided it wasn't worth it and that they had enough nuclear power to go around and really, Kumbaya is where it's at.  
//  
now-

"You're a lightweight, Winchester," the Doctor says, popping another liqueur chocolate into his mouth.

"I'm not drunk," Sam says, "You, on the other hand, have had two bottles of vodka with dissolved jellybeans," he ignores the snort and the disgusted, 'I'm not the one having the local microbrew' and continues, "and a bottle of that thing from U dash ri dash L, so why..."

"Haven't I had alcohol poisoning yet?" the Doctor finishes, "that, young grasshopper, is my secret."

Sam kisses him, because with those golden eyes laughing at him like that- there's no way he can't. When he's done, he says, with all the careful gravity of a drunk,

"Everything's a secret with you. Your name, your family. Must get tiring." Then he turns over onto his back and prepares to go to sleep because it's been a very long day.

The Doctor's petting his hair absently and that's soothing enough that Sam's almost asleep when the Doctor says, slow and careful, "Gabriel. Sam, my name is Gabriel."

Sam blinks up at him and has to swallow down a lump in his throat to speak, "Thank you. I'll be careful I promise." He mouths 'Gabriel' because he can't bring himself to say it yet, it's too precious a gift to be used carelessly.

The Doct...Gabriel grins and rolls his eyes at him, "I know, Big Foot."

 

6.

So, cow killings and disappearing kids- it's either vampires that aren't so much vegetarian as omnivorous, or witches. Dean isn't picking up his phone (Cas might have hidden it, come to think of it) on his weekend off and Sam can't wait for him to come back when the kids might still be alive.

Which is why he's in this abandoned house in the middle of the forest and thanking God that going by the noise there's only one person in the house. He tries to peep in through the keyhole of the room where the sound is coming from and nearly falls flat on his face when it swings open.

"Gabriel?" Sam asks, "What are you..." Sam closes his eyes to ward off the headache that he can feel coming on "You made up all of this, didn't you? The newspaper articles, the carcasses. What about the people I spoke to? Did you make them up too?"

"Yup, some of my best work, programmed to do everything that real humans do, including not thinking. Of course, I had to prompt them a little bit here and there." Gabriel grins, "Take a seat, La Femme Nikita's just going to start."

Gabriel enlarges the couch he's sitting on, in front of the 152 inch tv, instead of snapping up a separate chair.

Sam sits down and says, sounding more plaintive than he meant to, "But why?"

"Why not?" Gabriel shrugs.

"You...if there's something you want, you could have just called." Gabriel lecherously looks him up-and-down and Sam, asks, in a horrified voice, "This is a booty call isn't it? You're an archangel! You can't abuse your powers for a booty call!"

"They're my powers," Gabriel points out, "I can abuse them for anything I want."

"But you won’t get a phone," Sam said.

"My way's more fun," Gabriel protests.

"Your way sucks," Sam replies, but in a resigned tone and he goes quietly when Gabriel makes a dismissing noise and pulls him down to kiss him.

 

7.

Sam’s twisting and turning, but he won’t make a sound, not ‘til he’s allowed. He knows from experience that the rope won’t give and lying on his back, he can’t get any friction, any relief for his cock no matter what he does and the two thoughts together make him tremble with arousal and his need.

He doesn’t know how long he’s been here, on this bed, his hands tied together to the headboard and his legs spread and tied separately. Long enough to have lost the shame that comes at the beginning. He measured at first (thinking, _‘one Mississippi, two Mississippi’_ ) the way he always does but the pull of the rope and the silk of the blindfold has taken him down to his body, the muscle and the skin.

Sometimes he can’t have the rope, he has to be still by himself, grit his teeth and not move when Gabriel’s teasing him with ice, or with hot drops of wax or his very talented mouth. Those times are the worst; it’s so easy to fail.

He hears footsteps, which must be deliberate, and the little bit of his brain still thinking of ‘hunting’ and the disadvantage to being tied should someone attack… mewls and turns belly-up. He arches his back, the way Gabriel likes, (and he’s self-aware enough to know he makes a pretty picture like this) and there’s a gentle hand stroking his belly and a gentle voice saying, “Good boy.”

 

8.  
“Expecting someone taller?” Gabriel quips, but he’s uneasy about how good-looking this guy is. He hadn’t looked that hot on the photos they had exchanged. Good-looking guys…well, Gabriel’s got this theory about good-looking people. He made it up when he was in college and vomiting his guts out one morning-after-the-night-before. Basically, good-looking people’re douches. No, really, that’s the theory. Nothing else to see here. Go home.

Sam smiles brilliantly and says,”No, you’re just like I expected from your photo. But man, I swear I’ve never seen anyone over the age of twelve having that many scoops of ice-cream.”

Or don’t, because this is Sam and Sam is…Sam. Warm and sweet and sarcastic even through text messaging and ridiculously self-effacing.

“You won’t have any,” Gabriel says, it’s barely a question and he isn’t surprised when Sam shakes his head, “They’ve got some fruity health-stuff over by the tents for androids like you.” Gabriel says because he always insults people when he finds them hot and wants to go out with them. It’s a defense mechanism alright?

Then they’re walking towards the tents and Sam places a hand on Gabriel’s shoulder and Gabriel says, "Whu…what are you doing?”

Sam looks surprised for a moment then his gaze falls to his hand and he laughs sheepishly, “Sorry, sorry. It’s sort of a date-habit of mine. Do you mind?”

Gabriel asks, “We’re on a date?” because when did they have that conversation?

Sam opens and closes his mouth a few times, then says, “Which part of ‘will you go with me to this modern-circus?’ did you think…” He buries his face in his hands and says, in a muffled voice, “Man, I’m so sorry, this must be so embarrassing for you.”

Which…stop right there. Hot guys asking him on dates? Nope, not embarrassing at all. Sam asking him on a date- makes him feel ten feet tall. Gabriel considers that thought for another moment then adds, well, figuratively.

“No date,” Sam says and with a determined nod, steps back. And stands there looking awkward.

Gabriel indignantly says, “It doesn’t work like that, you don’t get to take it back.”

Sam blinks and looks awkwardly adorable, “Date then?”

“Let me think about it,” Gabriel says and this time Sam gets it. He grins and says, “Think fast, or you’ll be wearing that mess you call an ice-cream.”

“I’ll just have you lick it off me,” Gabriel says, lapping at his hand where the ice-cream’s melted and making a trail down to his elbow. He starts walking, trusting Sam to steer him away from trouble with his hand on Gabriel’s shoulder.

 

9.

“I’d be cool, I’d be _awesome_ ,” Gabriel says, waving his lollipop around lazily, joint sending up hypnotic curls of smoke from his other hand.

Sam gives up on his textbook and lies down next to Gabriel, “No, you wouldn’t. You would be something really small, and yappy. A chihuahua.”

Gabriel shoves Sam with an elbow, and struggles half-heartedly when Sam grabs at him and puts out the joint. Finally, they settle down again, with Sam lying on his left side, right hand curled around Gabriel’s face and right leg slung over Gabriel.

He kisses Gabriel, first Gabriel’s lips then gentle pressure on his neck and cheek, wherever he can reach. He rubs idly up against Gabriel’s leg, something about seeing Gabriel winding down from his usual manic energy always turns him on.

“You’d be a mutt, a mixed breed.” Gabriel trails off with a pleased hum as Sam nibbles at his the shell of his ear.

“Sure, I’d be a Lab and an Alsatian- two types of awesome.” Sam says, after successfully distracting him.

Gabriel and says, “No way, you’d be one of those idiot dogs, the giant ones that keep tripping over their own feet.” Then he deliberately presses his leg against Sam’s crotch and barks out a laugh at Sam’s low moan.

“You’d probably be a _cat_ ,” Sam says vindictively, and rubs his palm over the bulge of Gabriel’s cock. Gabriel thrusts up, almost instinctively.

“Oh yeah, I’d sit on a wall and laugh at you tripping over yourself trying to catch me.” Gabriel replies, and turns his head to the side to nip at Sam’s cheek when Sam lifts his palm up just enough that Gabriel can’t press up against it.

Sam catches his lips and kisses him, wet and filthy the way Gabriel likes, really likes and then pulls back to say, “You’d be a Siamese, someone’s pet with a diamond collar and all that. You’d have a special diet made up by a vet so that your delicate stomach is okay,” while Gabriel’s still dazed.

“Yeah, I don’t remember being the one with a delicate stomach, kiddo,” Gabriel says, and pulls up Sam’s shirt so he can drag his blunt nails down Sam’s belly and Sam curses him aloud, mostly for knowing what turns Sam on. Gabriel grins and says, “You’d be the pet, getting loads of belly-rubs. A pom maybe- you’ve got the hair for it.”

“Whatever you say man.” Sam says, and straddles Gabriel so he can rub off against him properly.

“We should…ah, take our pants’ off, kid.” Gabriel says, between moaning and promptly ignores his own advice by grabbing Sam’s ass and pulling him closer. Sam feels the warm length of Gabriel’s dick rubbing against his own and leans down to kiss him so he won’t make any more stupid suggestions about moving away from this delicious friction.

Gabriel’s kneading Sam’s ass through his jeans and making pornographic sounds when Sam lifts his head so Sam just has to go on kissing him. Sam knows when Gabriel’s coming because he makes this weird…purring, satisfied sound. Sam hesitates a moment but Gabriel urges him to keep moving with his hands. Sam groans when he comes, and has just enough strength left to collapse not on Gabriel but beside him.

He’s buried his face in Gabriel’s hair and wondering whether cleaning up is really necessary or whether he can put it off till morning when Gabriel exclaims indignantly, “I lost my lollipop.”

 

10.

_So the prologue was either this_

“Is that the ‘mama is very angry, go to your room,’ speech?” Sam asked, “Because it really sounded like that.”

He and Dean looked at each other, looked at a slightly singed, shellshocked Gabriel, very singed Bobby, Ellen and Jo and a triumphant Cas smelling of alcohol (because apparently God had gotten caught up in a 1962 rave party and had lost track of the time) and burst out laughing.

They stumbled back to the Roadhouse and had a party themselves, and kept cracking up whenever they remembered Michael’s face. And Lucifer trying to smooth-talk his Dad, that had been hilarious, everyone agreed.

 

_Or it was this_

 

“You put a rat in my bed, dude. You deserve everything you got.” Dean said, pointing at Sam.

“You got Gabriel to put ‘too sexy for my pants’ on my forehead.” Sam said, raising an eyebrow.

“Nah, I just told him to make it pink, he got the idea all on his own,” Dean grinned.

“Cas came up with the idea of making all of your porn sites into vegan pizza deliveries all on his own too.” Sam said, with some satisfaction.

“My wings,” Cas snarled, and even Gabriel flinched. Sam looked at Dean who tugged Cas away to calm him down with apologies and pizza. There was a silent agreement to drop the pranks from then on that Gabriel whined about, because pranks were his raison d’être.

 

_The general exasperation was because of, well, a lot. But just as an example_

“Hide me. Hide me!” a tall blonde barreled into their motel room, and slammed the door shut.

Dean already had his gun out and pointed at her before Sam said, “Gabriel? Is that you?”

“Is that some girl’s body? Because dude that is just creepy.” Dean said.

“It’s just an illusion,” Gabriel said, rolling his eyes and dropping back onto Sam’s bed, “They might look for me, and the first place they’ll look is wherever you two are. I’m not getting caught. They’re driving me crazy!”

“Michael and Lucifer?” Sam guessed.

“Sammael,” Gabriel corrected, with a wicked smile, “Dad says he won’t call him by that ‘ridiculous, teenage angst-ridden moniker’ and we’re all dutiful children so we decided to do the same.”

“And you’re hiding from them?” Dean asked, looking amused.

“They’ve already burnt down three heavens,” Gabriel snaps, “And Zachariah got caught in the cross-fire and he’s poofed.” Gabriel makes a violent gesture with both hands that sets the furniture rattling. “No one can find him, no one can find his vessel. So, yeah, muttonhead, I’m hiding.”

Sam pulls him up, jerks his head at Dean to leave (which Dean does with exaggerated ‘you owe me’ motions) and settles Gabriel onto his lap to give him a neck massage and hopefully calm him down. It would have been easier if his eyes weren’t telling him that Gabriel’s neck was a good four inches above where his hand could feel it.

 

 _Then Sam finally decided that enough really was enough_ _because of this_

Raphael puts Gabriel gently down on the bed then turns to Sam and Dean with her usual contemptuous look held in check.

“What’s wrong with him?” Dean demands.

For a moment Raphael looks like she won’t answer then she says, “He got between Michael and Lucifer. They were going to kill each other, and he wanted to stop them.”

She breathes in deeply and grinds out, “He should have let them finish. It’s not like they even care ab…” she stops abruptly and says, “Take care of him. I’ve managed to heal a lot of his injuries but not all; he wasn’t the only one hurt. He’ll need rest.”

Then she’s gone in the blink of an eye. Sam gently strokes Gabriel’s cheek, his bloodless lips and decides that something needs to be done about this situation. A minute later, Cas appears and asks, “Is he alive?” and the tight expression on his face clears when he’s seen Gabriel. Sam decides that something needs to be done _now_.  

_So something was done_

“I don’t believe our Father would approve,” Cas says wistfully.

“Dad? He’ll love it.” Cas looks sceptical so Gabriel holds up a hand and says, “Alright, he’ll love it once he knows that the yelling will stop.”

Cas still looks doubtful so Dean says, “It can’t hurt. We have to do something. Or one of these days, one of you is going to end up between those douchebags and get fried.”

 

_Backing up_

 

“I’m not strong enough.” Gabriel said, contemplatively slathering ketchup on his fries, “I couldn’t trap one of them. Both? Together? No way!”

“There has to be some way, what about holy fire?” Sam asks, stealing a fry, “Is there any way we can guard the spell with holy fire so that they can’t get out.”

Gabriel shakes his head impatiently, “Holy fire guards physical boundaries. Spells don’t have physical boundaries. Besides, they’ll still have their powers. They could get an ocean there in a matter of milliseconds.” He emphatically chewed a fry.

Sam’s just going to brood a little about his plan failing when Gabriel wistfully says, “It would be fun wouldn’t it? Putting them in tv land together. Maybe one of those soap operas where someone’s always getting pregnant with an illegitimate child. I think Michael would be a good mother, don’t you?”

Sam nudges him, “We’ll think of something, man. Hang in there.”

Gabriel tilts his head, eerily reminiscent of Cas, and then slowly smiles, “I think I have thought of something.”

Then he grabs Sam and there’s the sound of wings, and then they’re in a library. To do it proper justice, you’d have to call it The library. Sam thinks, excitedly, that there must be _so much_ here.

“Don’t wander off,” Gabriel says, pulling him along by his arm.

“I wasn’t going to,” Sam lies.

“You’re lying,” Gabriel says approvingly and stops in front of a shelf that looks like every other shelf, except it’s completely empty. Gabriel glances up, as if he knows what Sam’s thinking then winks and extends a hand and three books fall right into his arms.

“Invisibility spell?” Sam guesses, even more excited now.

“Far more than that, but yup, that too.” Gabriel says then tugs at him, “We’ll come back later nerd. Right now, we have the mother of all pranks to plan!”

 

_Forward to where we were_

 

“So we put these wards and that spell up in some room, and it’ll keep them there, and take their mojo?” Gabriel makes a ‘you got it’ gesture at him and Dean asks, “Cool, but how are we getting them there? And who are they using as vessels?”

“Messages,” Sam says, grinning, it was his idea, “Tell Michael that Lucifer is holding someone hostage there. Tell Lucifer that Michael says he’s too much of a coward to go. Gabriel says they won’t need vessels. New regulation by their Father.”

 

_Forward again_

“Pass the popcorn, will you?” Gabriel says, kicking at whatever part of Cas his foot’s nearest to. Michael’s just found out that Sammael was cheating on him

“I do not have the popcorn, Gabriel,” Cas growls irritably and smacks away his hand without looking away from the screen. Sammael is now trying to convince Michael that of course he hadn’t cheated, he would _never_ do that.

There’s a brief buzz that signals that the show is changing.

“What the hell kind of show is this?” Dean demands

Gabriel says gleefully, “The Tudors.”

Sammael yells, “When I get out of here, I will kill every last one of you!”

Michael says, no less desperately, “Brothers, you must let us out.”

“You’ll get out as soon as you can get along, Mikey,” Gabriel says, and settles back down to enjoy the popcorn Sam’s just handed him.

 

_And that’s our happy ending._

 

11.

 

There were six people walking. Two women and four kids. They ‘tsk’ed as they went past the police line cordoning off the place the cliff had crumbled.

 

“Two boys,” the tall, dark woman was saying, “Went right over, their bones haven’t been found yet.”

 

“My Rob says that there should have been a line put in years ago, so that people knew not to drive on that bit.” The pale woman said.

 

They walked past and forgot all about it. The man (for lack of a better word) watching them was gone long before. He sat beside the wreckage of the car; it had been beautiful and black once, now it was broken beyond repair. The only man who would have been able to rebuild it had died with it.

 

He strolls along the river, collecting. Here a finger, there the tiniest fragment of a collar bone. When he had two skeletons before him, he gently sets them down in their home. With a snap of his fingers, it all went up in flames.

 

“Gabriel, I thought you were dead.”

 

Gabriel turned to Sam’s soul and grinned, “I was, and now I’m not. You should know how that works. How do you like the new look?”

 

“Exactly the same as the old look.” Sam returns, he scrunches up his brow and says, “So you’re a Reaper now? That’s a pretty sad demotion.”

 

Gabriel raises an eyebrow, “There’s gratitude for you. The Reapers are overworked anyway, we took a load off them, and they let us take you. It’ll be less disorienting for you. Come on.”

 

Sam hesitates, his anxiety is obvious. Gabriel rolls his eyes, “Your brother’s fine! Having a chat with your parents and Cas.” He points upwards then adds, “Probably not Cas actually, he seems to be the strong, silent type.”

 

Sam’s breath catches in his throat, and he can’t bring himself to thank him, or say any of the other things he never got to. Gabriel’s eyes soften, “You’re done here kiddo. Come on, I’m here to take you home.”

12.

 

Gabriel keeps falling asleep on him. Like, everywhere. Not when Cas is there. When Dean’s there he sort of…turns himself invisible.

 

Cas rarely travels in the car with them. He says it’s too confining, he’s uneasy when he can’t see the sky properly. Sam thinks it’s just because he gets jealous of all the cooing Dean does over his car. Gabriel doesn’t come during the short drives, the ones to the supermarket or to a bar. But the long ones, where they’re driving for eight, twelve hours at a time- then he does.

 

It’s strange, Gabriel’s sprawled over him on that small front seat and it’s not uncomfortable, it’s not hot, it’s fine. Some of it is Gabriel’s mojo, Sam thinks.

 

You’d think night time would be the obvious choice, and he does come then but he doesn’t come every night. Well, there was that one week where he came every night and glared at the gashes on Sam’s arm (an inch more and it would’ve gotten to his stomach and his guts would be on some forest floor and Dean would be off doing some damn fool thing) until they healed and left behind only another scar to add to his collection and he flew away. The doctor had said it’d take at least three weeks to heal. Sam doesn’t thank Gabriel, except for holding him a little closer when he finally comes back.

 

Then there was that one time, when Dean’s trying to score with some girl, joking that he desperately needs to know he’s still sexy (and Sam didn’t pointedly roll his eyes because pointing out Dean’s big gay crisis isn’t actually going to solve it) and Gabriel’s there, tossing fries into his mouth. He starts off in Dean’s seat, opposite Sam. He moves beside Sam to steal his food and by degrees ends up tucked into Sam’s chest.

 

“He does know that’s not going to help his big gay love become any less gay?” Gabriel asks sleepily and Sam snorts out his beer laughing.

 

Now Sam’s just lying here, and it’s February and their motel doesn’t have a heater, naturally, and he’s not really thinking of anything. Not really, except that it’s always warmer with two people and that Gabriel hasn’t shown up in a few days. Then he hears a muted rustling sound and he’s got a familiar armful of archangel.

 

Gabriel mutters, “Stop thinking so loudly.”

 

Then Sam mentally shrugs and stops bothering to think at all.

 

13.

 

Thing is.

 

Thing is, Gabriel's old. Millennia old. Old as Time (and no, the capital letter isn't just for show) old.

 

There isn't anything that he hasn't seen and very little that he hasn't done.

 

So when he says that Sam Winchester is something special, what he means is amazing. He means brilliant, and mindblowing and...and really fucking cool.

 

He means that he can go to the ends of the Universe (and there's no restaurant there, thanks very much Douglas Adams) and he can go back to the beginning of the Earth, he can go to an Elvis concert (or even all of them) and he can go to Woodstock and have an acid trip to the sound of Janis Joplin and The Who. And yet.

 

And yet he'd rather be right here, watching Sam sleep. Keeping away his nightmares and nudging him towards pleasant dreams (and yeah, okay, so some of them are of him. So what? He doesn't make the dreams. Sammy-boy does that all on his own, and isn't that an acid trip all by itself.)

 

He hasn't laid a finger on Sam. Not only would it be creepy, it would also wake him up and then they'd have to do the whole stakes and holy oil and misery dance all over again. Sometimes though, sometimes he wonders. What it'd be like to have the right to be here. To be welcomed here. Sometimes he wonders what it'd take to be able to turn around and see Sam smiling at him. Recently.

 

Recently he's been thinking about reaching out and touching.

Sequel is 73.15 and threequel is 19

 

14.

 

"Lord of the Rings," Sam said, gasping for breath. "You put us in _Lord of the Rings_? Why the hell would you do that?"

 

"Seemed like a good idea at the time," Gabriel quipped.

 

Sam straightened up from his position sprawling against a rock and asked, "Did it really?"

 

"Of course not!" Gabriel rolled his eyes at him, "I miscalculated."

 

Sam would have said 'what?' only he was too busy running for his life from what looked like some pulp science fiction author's version of an alien. Big, loud and scary. Oh, and armed. Don't forget the 'armed' part. Not that Sam could.

 

Then they landed in what looked like a love hotel for the very, very rich. It had a bathtub that could actually fit both Sam and Gabriel. And flavored lube. They took their time there. The next one...is better off not talked about. Though Sam really wanted to know about the pincers, they weren’t _real_ , right? Because real pincers and that thing with the uh tentacles…yeah, no, better off not talked about.

 

Then they were chased by a bear, and what fucking story was _that_ from?

 

“Shakespeare,” Gabriel said, then turned it into a teddy and gave it to the little Match Girl.

 

Then…then they were in a moving castle, and it was flying.

 

Sam laughed, leaning out of the window, and called out, “This is amazing!”

 

“I know you like flying,” Gabriel admitted, curling up under Sam’s arm, “And I couldn’t figure out a safe story with pegasi or whatever so…”

 

“So you brought me to a flying castle,” Sam said, laugh softening to a smile.

 

“It’s _technically_ just a Moving Castle with some extras of my own added in.” Gabriel trailed off and said, “Yeah, I’m being soppy as hell aren’t I?”

 

Sam grinned down at him and said, “I won’t tell a soul.” Discretion being the better part of not being thrown into the Hunger Games and all that.

 

 

15.

first came 13. then came 73. , and this is the next (third) part mostly because thirtyspells wanted it. Next is 19. 

 

“You’ve been messing around in my dreams,” Sam said. His voice was startlingly neutral.

 

“Yeah. Yeah, so I have,” Gabriel said, he’s vacillating between flying off and seeing this thing to the end, now that he’s started it.

 

“And somehow, this is supposed to make me trust you?” Sam asked, in the same tone.

 

 “I’ve been helping!” Gabriel protests.

 

“Okay,” Sam says and Gabriel can’t believe it was that easy. Then Sam goes on, “Okay, so you were helping. Why were you helping? The last time you were  _helping_  you put me in a car and the time before that you killed my brother over a hundred times, so what makes this time different?”

 

“You want me,” Gabriel blurts out, because Sam is like that- always making Gabriel spill things he has no intention of saying.

 

Sam jumps up like he’s had a shock and Gabriel feels a vicious satisfaction at the discomfort in his face but, typically, he straightens his back and says in a defiant tone, "Yeah, I do.” 

 

And Father help him, this defiance, the way Sam would stand straight up when the world stood against him was what had brought Gabriel here, where he is standing right now.

 

So Gabriel tells him, not everything, no way in hell, his time as a god and the millennia of loneliness are none of Sam’s business (and anyway, he wouldn’t care about that, would he?) He does tell him that he doesn’t want the world to end and he doesn’t want Sam to be burnt up and thrown away, that he deserves better than that.

His usually glib tongue fails him, his sentences are disjointed and he ends with, of all the stupid things, “You asked me for help. I’m offering to help now. Turbo-charged help. Be grateful!”

 

Sam’s sitting down again now, and looking at him with those stupid doe eyes that make Gabriel want to snarl because they make him want to purr.

 

Sam looks a little amused at whatever he reads on Gabriel’s face, “You want me too,” he says, and really, that  _is_  what this comes down to so Gabriel stifles down his need to protect himself and nods.

 

“I shouldn’t trust you,” Sam says, glancing away and then looking Gabriel right in the eyes, “Dean would say,” he makes a face that speaks volumes and it’s not like Gabriel doesn’t know the fuss that Winchester the elder is going to kick up. Sam goes on,”It doesn’t matter, alright. But you can’t…you can’t be, this can’t be a trick, okay? You have to mean it.” 

 

Gabriel reaches out and lays a hand over Sam’s, fighting the urge to run, and swears in a shaking voice, “You can trust me.”

There aren’t any stakes, no holy fire either. No protest. Instead Sam ducks his head and looks at him through those bangs and smiles so sweetly that Gabriel could have believed he was dreaming it up and then he shifts his hand to grip Gabriel’s hand firmly.   

 

  
16.

“But it’s called ‘Candyman’. What kind of pirate names their spaceship ‘Candyman’?” Sam asked.

 

“Apparently the sort that gets InterGalactic Police as hideaways.” Gabriel said.

 

“We’re not really IGP.” Sam admitted.

 

“Yeah, I guessed that. I’ve had some experience with them and this isn’t really their MO.” Gabriel said, waving a hand around the room that had gotten trashed when Sam and Dean had been chasing what they had thought was a run-of-the-mill ghost but turned out to be a dullahan riding its ghostly horse. “Which begs the question,” Gabriel continued, “Who are you?”

 

“Dean’s my brother and we’re hunters.” Sam said, “We hunt supernatural stuff. Like the stuff that was in your ship.”

 

“So you saved my crew’s lives then? Seems like I owe you a drink.” Gabriel said, letting his eyes run over Sam’s form, even more obviously flirtatious than he had been the whole of the previous week.  

 

Sam flushed “Ah…I thought you were just doing that to make me uncomfortable.”

 

“Bit of that too.” Gabriel admitted, “The look on your brother’s face, man. How could I resist?”

 

Sam felt a flicker of want again but suppressed it as ruthlessly as before, “Sorry, I try not to become buddies with pirates.” He stood up to get away.

 

Gabriel lazily propped his feet on the door’s lockpad, and said, “Hold your horses bucko, no need to get all high and mighty. Unless you’re telling me that impersonating the IGP has become legal while I wasn’t looking?”

 

Sam spluttered and said, “It’s not the same! We help people.”

 

Gabriel grinned suddenly, amused at the boy’s self-righteousness and said, “I promise I only steal from people who deserve it kid. Now, sit down and have a drink with me.” In a calculated move, he took his feet down and moved to the other end of the room to pour them both a drink. Just as he’d figured, Sam only hesitated a moment before sitting down again.

 

He clinked their glasses together and said, “When I’m attacking, I change my ship’s name to ‘Trickster’.”

 

Sam looked at him and there’s recognition in his face, and Gabriel noticed with glee that there was a guilty amusement there too.

 

“You’ve heard of me then?” Gabriel asked and Sam glanced down and then back at him, biting back a brilliant smile that’s pretty much the final straw for Gabriel. He settled down with his best moves for a slow seduction. 

 

It’s a few days before he realizes that he was being seduced too.

 

17 **.** (For this part, TW: suicidal thoughts)

 

Sam stumbles and catches himself on the wall and the gun falls and he can hear the cartridges scattering from their box. He curses, everyone was usually good about putting things back in their usual places but people did forget. He goes down on his hand and knees and pats the floor for the gun and cartridges.

 

Someone catches him by the wrist and shoves him back, against the wall. Not Dean, who didn’t have that much strength and not Cas, who was always gentle.

 

“Gabriel,” Sam says.

 

“Don’t you dare.” Gabriel snarls at him. “Don’t you fucking dare even think about it.”

“You don’t understand.” Sam says bitterly, “I can’t do anything. Anything! I can’t hunt, I can’t even do the research part and Dean is stuck here  _with_ me. I can’t read, I can’t even write because my right hand’s useless. I’m going mad. You have to let me do this.” He’s shouting by the end of his speech.

 

“No, _no_. I don’t have to let you do anything and especially not this. We haven’t lived through a war just to let you die now.” Gabriel says and he still sounds furious but a little less than before.

 

Sam thinks he would be crying now if Lucifer hadn’t burnt his lacrimal glands out along with his eyes. He hears Gabriel moving, and thinks he’s coming closer. A moment later, Gabriel has slid down to sit on the floor beside him with a thump. They sit there for a long time. Long enough for Sam’s heart to slow down again, the adrenaline going away. Then Gabriel’s hand comes to rest on his thigh; Sam slumps down and moves to rest his head on Gabriel’s shoulder.

 

“Come on,” Gabriel says suddenly.

 

“Where to?” Sam asks, not that he really cares. He doesn’t want to move. He can’t fucking deal with the world and Gabriel can’t make him.

 

“Up you get, come on sugarplum,” Gabriel says, pulling him up and Sam’s too tired even to object to the silly nickname. 

 

Gabriel leads him forward and suddenly…

“Gabriel,” Sam can hear his voice trembling, “I can see. It’s weird but. What did you do?” He knows he must be hurting Gabriel with how tightly he’s holding on but he can’t make himself stop. Then he says, “Gabriel, this is you isn’t it? I’m seeing through your eyes. That’s why I can see all of this…stuff.”

 

“It’s not a permanent solution.” Gabriel says, and there’s an undertone of stress in his voice that tells Sam that this is as intimate for him as it is for Sam. He pulls Sam along by his good hand, out into the porch overlooking their backyard. There are trees here, and Sam can see birds too. And the sunlight.

 

He can see Cas sitting, making the protection charms and other stuff that he gives to the hunters. The ones who still hunt, that is. He is just a few yards away from where Dean is working on a car he’s restoring- this one’s for pleasure, not business. They’re tossing casual barbs at each other and occasionally staring into each other’s eyes, the way they always had. They’re looking so good, though anything of course would be better from the last time Sam could see them. When they were all covered in blood and dust, so much of it their own.

 

With Gabriel’s eyes Sam can feel the contentment rolling languidly over them. There is worry there, yeah, and a bit of irritation but there’s no restlessness, no bitterness. They’re happy to be here, he thinks and feels his lips curve up involuntarily.

 

“I can’t see you,” he tells Gabriel quietly, a lilt at the end making it a question.

 

Gabriel shrugs, Sam can feel it from where Gabriel’s leaning against his side, “Nope.” Even that can’t wipe the smile from him, though he feels a little wistful.

 

He leans down to brush a kiss against Gabriel’s lips and laughs when the disorienting difference between what he’s seeing and what is actually in front of him leads him to kiss Gabriel’s chin instead. When he straightens up, he’s still laughing and that’s when he sees Dean looking up at him with this baffled, happy expression on his face. 

 

“Thank you,” Sam says to Gabriel and holds on to him as tightly as he can. 

 

18 **.**

 

“I’ll set you free then, I mean you’re free if I wish it, right?” Sam said, gesturing vaguely at the genie and its elaborate ( _pretty_ , Sam thought) liqueur bottle. His head was still spinning from meeting a genie ( _it didn’t look like a genie_ , he thought, _no smoke or whatever, just like a human being but what did he know?_ )

 

“Don’t you dare, you muttonhead! This is my safety net, my witness protection program.” the genie jabbed its ( _his_?) Mars bar in Sam’s direction for emphasis. His gold eyes flashed ( _very pretty_ ).

 

“So you don’t want to be free?” Sam asked, rather blankly, because in every story he had ever read the genie wanted to be free. How was it that he was stuck with the weird one that didn’t fit any rules?

 

“I travel the universe, to wherever I want, whenever I want in an awesome room,” Sam glanced at the liqueur bottle involuntarily and the genie huffed, “Dimensionally transcendental. Back to the point! I can do all that and you think I’m the one who isn’t free? Now. You want something? A wish, questions? Or can I get back to the bed you dragged me from for your inanities?”

 

Sam’s response was involuntary, “You watch Doctor Who?”

 

The genie sighed exasperatedly and said, “Seven billion humans and I get stuck with you,” and finished off his Mars bar and raised his hand to prepare to snap his fingers, which was apparently how he did his… magic.  

 

“What’s your name?” Sam asked, quickly before the genie vanished. He added, a little skeptically, “You don’t look like you were sleeping.”

 

“Gabriel,” the genie replied, “And when did I say I was sleeping?” Like the Cheshire cat ( _and seriously, maybe the cat was_ _modeled after him, who knows?_ ) his wicked grin was the last thing to disappear.

Sequel is 21

 

19.

 

Third part. This is the sequel to 15. which is a sequel to 73. which is a sequel to 13.

 

Sam screamed and thrashed around with the remnants of Lucifer’s supernatural strength. Gabriel held him down and said, “Come on now. It’s okay. Sshh.”

 

Sam stilled absolutely for a moment and then started whispering too fast for human ears, “Burns, it burns. He burns. He’s so cold. Dean?” He screamed, “Dean.”

 

“Dean’s fine. He’ll be here soon. He’s unconscious but he’ll be here soon. Hang on.” Gabriel soothed him and gently petted him now that he’d stopped fighting.

 

“Dean’s dead.” Sam said. “Blasted to pieces. Blood. So much blood. He could use it to poison the all the seas. Five point six liters of blood in the average human body. He would use it to paint the sigils to kill his demon children.”

 

“Lucifer’s gone now. He’s dead,” Gabriel said and placed his forehead against Sam’s to stare into his unseeing eyes. After a moment, Sam’s eyes focused.

 

“Dead,” Sam said dully, “Everyone’s dead. The earth is dead. Covered with the fire. To cleanse, he says. He’s saying it now,” he whimpers, “Dead. All dead. Draw out the sickness, he says.”

 

Sam started trembling. Gabriel held him tightly so he couldn’t hurt himself. All through the night, he sat there holding Sam. Through the screaming, the crying, through Sam trying to scratch his skin off.

 

When the first rays of light filtered in through the grimy window, Sam stirred from his uneasy sleep. Gabriel tensed up to hold him down if he started hurting himself again but Sam only said, in his torn voice, “Gabriel, we did it, didn’t we? We saved the world?”

 

Gabriel tightened his hold briefly and said, “You saved the world, Sam. I only helped.” And he closed his eyes and thanked a Father he hadn’t acknowledged in millennia.  

 

 

20.

 

His hand tightened on the door, he let go before the wood broke.

 

Sam was sprawled on the wooden chair, shirtless, one leg thrown over an arm of the chair. His cock was clearly outlined in his denim, and he had one hand resting on his thigh, just barely touching his crotch. He was lazily eating a hot dog, licking sauce off his fingers obscenely while looking straight at Gabriel. He made a dirty picture; an enticing, desirable view. Despite the artful carelessness of the scene, Gabriel knew this had been set up for his sake.

 

"I'll come back when you aren't busy," Gabriel said coolly.

 

A flash of boredom crossed Sam's face, "Do we really have to keep doing this? I know you want me.  You always did." Gabriel let his expression be his reply.

 

Sam sighed and let his head fall back and asked, "Really? Why you gotta be like that, man? It'll be fun, relaxing."

 

When the practiced pose fell from Sam it only made him that much more seductive. The sulky edge to his mouth gave Gabriel a sudden thrill of arousal. That was probably what made him lash out by saying, "What I wanted is buried in Hell with my brother. You're just skin and bones."

 

And the soulless abomination had the nerve to look amused at that.

 

 

21.

 

Sequel to 18.

 

It was rather like owning a cat, Sam supposed. As in he’d heard from people with cats that really, the cat owned you.

 

At first they’d had an uneasy routine where Sam avoided looking at the liqueur bottle but couldn’t bring himself to put it away and Gabriel could have been a unusually realistic dream (or nightmare) except for Sam occasionally coming home to see the entire apartment had been cleaned and all his clothes were washed and all his boxers had mysteriously become pink with lewd messages. 

 

Then came the fateful day that Sam realized that almost all genies had existed for thousands of years and immediately tried to discover how to beg, bribe or force Gabriel into answering a few (just a few) questions. 

 

“Sweets?” Sam asked the book which didn’t reply. “What sort of sweets?” The book stubbornly continued to be unhelpful. So he just took back a chocolate cake (rejected), mango mousse (eaten with a put-upon expression) and a collection of candy bars- Twizzlers, Mars bars, Snickers that were devoured.

 

“You should bring more of these tomorrow,” Gabriel said and snapped away.

 

From then on, they settled into a sort of comfortable cohabitation to the point where Sam was …surprised (not  _hurt_ ) if he came back from the office and didn’t find some foreign, unrecognizable food set out as dinner and Gabriel sitting in front of the telly waiting to mock him.

 

It was rather nice, Sam supposed.  

 

 

22.

 

In the end it wasn't the cool dismissals, or the cheating that tipped Gabriel off. Nor the way Sam didn't protectively curl up around him like a second blanket (or skin) anymore. When he thought about it, he figured he probably deserved that.

 

It wasn't the risks Sam took with other people's lives during hunts that made him figure it out because Gabriel had never hung around during their hunts (and if he had, he thought now, if he had then this might not have happened in the first place).

 

It surprised Gabriel, the way Sam was so comfortable with his powers that he used them without thinking but defeating that thing (the thing that wasn't his brother no- his brother had died eons ago when he first lifted his sword against their Father) had taken effort. It wasn't unlikely that Sam had become used to his powers and anyway, maybe he had been practicing.

 

In the end, what clued Gabriel in was the way he fluttered his fingers and lips over the simple black 'Jess' on Sam's inner thigh and Sam didn't immediately throw him off and throw him out.

 

"I got something wrong didn't I?" it...that horrible fucking thing pretending to be Sam sighed, "I knew it was risky but you have no clue how comfortable this skin is. He is...well,  _was_ , almost one of us you know." And its eyes turned black as it twisted Sam's lips upwards.

 

23.

"What would I have to do?" Gabriel doesn't ask, while kissing Sam.

Stitching Sam up instead of snapping his wounds closed; feeding him food bought with their money instead of Gabriel's powers; letting the Winchesters hunt by themselves instead of waving his hand and making the monster of the week go away, he doesn't ask.

Gabriel gets (steals) rare books, and buys Sam a shirt saying 'I fucked an archangel and all I got was this lousy t-shirt' and learns how to make vegetarian pizza and he still doesn't ask.

The nights when he can steal Sam away and take him to his own bed and kiss him breathless and leave his fingerprints all over Sam, the words are on the tip of his tongue and he buries his face in Sam's neck and doesn't ask.

Then one day, he's teasing Sam into having strawberries right out of his hand and Sam turns to him with that wide smile and those warm eyes and says unasked, "I love you," and Gabriel doesn't know what it is he's done but he's willing to keep right on doing it.

 

24.

This is the point where Gabriel usually gets bored and wanders away. Tonight though he watches Sam sleep and tells him, softly, “You’re mine.”

 

In the morning, Sam gives him a funny look and asks, “You came back early?”

 

Gabriel replies, “I stayed the night. Nothing better to do,” and notes grimly that Sam doesn’t look too happy at all about that.

 

Even the Winchesters had to retire sometime and Gabriel really hadn’t cared much one way or the other except for that one time (or two, or three or half a dozen) he remembered that he wouldn’t ever again have to come back to Sam shrugging off being inches away from death. Now it’s come back to bite him where it hurts. Sam gets attached. To places, things, normality…people. And Gabriel isn’t ‘people,’ which was easy to ignore during a life on the road but not so much when surrounded by apple-pie normality.

 

Gabriel considers making himself invisible and following Sam around while he’s teaching his classes to find out who it is that’s ‘people’ in this case but that’s a little weird even for him and more importantly, Sam always knows when he’s around. So he goes off to Venice.

 

Except that he actually doesn’t. He sits in the house Sam and Dean share (because it would be too normal for them to actually want their own space) and wonders who it is. Whether it’s a girl, some pretty, clever blonde with a wicked sense of humor. Or a boy- some sweet, good looking kid who likes domesticity, wants three kids and yearly holidays together. Someone who stays the night and goes with Sam to the boring Uni parties instead of leaving and coming back on an erratic schedule.

 

Sam raises an eyebrow when walking in through the door. Gabriel stops the juggling fish simulations and abruptly says, “Do you want to go to Venice?”

 

Sam looks taken aback, “Venice? Dude, where did that come from?”

 

Gabriel says, “Remember that time? Just after.”

 

“The giant salamander,” Sam finishes, laughing, “That was great.”

 

“So we’ll go?” Gabriel asks, feeling giddy with glee.

 

Sam’s apologetic face tells him all he needs to know, “My classes,” he starts.

 

“It’s fine.” Gabriel says dismissively and waves it off and wonders whether Sam would have said, ‘no’ if it had been his new lover who had asked.

 

Thus passes a miserable week where Gabriel can’t bring himself to stay and be happy and can’t bring himself to leave either. Sam seems more uneasy every time he comes back home and Gabriel is still there and they snipe viciously at each other. It takes three days for Gabriel to narrow down the suspects- it’s either ‘Verity’ or ‘Kanishk’.

From then on every time Gabriel hears the names, it’s an effort not to give them their just desserts for taking what belonged to him. The time Sam spends in bed (not sleeping) also increases proportionally because then, when Sam is whimpering beneath him, all of him belongs to Gabriel. He spends hours when Sam’s sleeping tracing the lines of Sam’s back, tracing out where he would tattoo two snakes eating each others’ tails just to prove that Sam is his.

 

Then the week ends and so does all of the (very little) self-control Gabriel had ever developed. Three years ago he would have left and not come back and he might even have managed to convince himself he didn’t regret it but now…now he has to try at least. He has to hear Sam tell him to go before he can leave.

 

He’s considering Dutch courage when Sam comes home early and the look on his face bodes nothing good. He tenses up when Sam says, “Listen, I…you’ve been acting weird. We, uh…we really need to talk.”

 

“Who is it?” he asks softly and feels his mouth twist into a mockery of a smile.

 

Sam scrunches up his forehead and looks taken aback, “You’re not making any sense.”

 

Gabriel says, “Who are you leaving me for?” and he wants to curl up into a little ball with his hands over his ears so he can’t hear the answer.

 

Sam says slowly, “Gabriel, I’m not leaving you. Why would you even think that?”

 

Gabriel isn’t sure how he’s read everything wrong but he trusts Sam not to lie about this, and there’s a wave of relief because Sam's still his. Sam steps towards him awkwardly, pushing aside the chairs he’s covered with books and Gabriel grabs him and pulls him down to kiss him.

 

Hours later, when Gabriel has apologized five times (creatively) for even considering that Sam would cheat Sam says he’ll think about getting the tattoo. Even later, Sam promises almost inaudibly that he likes Gabriel unpredictably popping in and out and cluttering the place with small stupid things from everywhere he goes and Gabriel wishes he could say, ‘I love you,’ but he can’t, it isn’t in his nature. So he presses a kiss into the center of Sam’s palm right over the heart line instead.     

25.

 

"...and the butler did it!" the man finishes with a flourish. 

 

Sam raises his eyebrows skeptically but can't help his lips twitching into a smile.

 

The other guy looks indignant, "It's true. All of it. Most nightmarish week of my life and you sit there laughing at me."

 

"I dunno what I should do. Usually when random drunks come up to me and tell me their life stories I ask for the bouncer." Sam says and isn't surprised at all when the man's golden eyes shine with amusement.

 

"Wouldn't have thought you'd need a bouncer, big guy," the man drawls and there's a flicker of interest there that Sam wants to respond to. "I'm not a random drunk, I'm the man that bought you a drink." He looks as if he's considering that then adds, "I'm not drunk anyway."

 

"Then told me all about your uh...glamorous," Sam emphasizes the last word, "As a private detective."

 

"It's all true," the man says again, shrugging as if to say 'take it or leave it'. 

 

"The butler did it?" Sam asks, about five seconds away from dissolving into helpless laughter. "Who the hell even has a butler these days?"

 

The man's eyes light up with amusement again and he shifts his barstool closer to Sam's and says in a confidential tone, "That family did. Pompous asses the lot of them and straight outta the eighteenth century. Or thereabouts, never was too good at history." 

 

"Your story's straight out of a '60s movie." Sam retorts, because he's starting to believe the guy despite himself. 

 

"Tell me about it." the guy says, dropping the dramatic act as if it was a smokescreen he doesn't need anymore. He smiles wryly, "Murder, mayhem and  a private detective at a country manor over a stolen Will. He finishes off the last of his beer and says, with the air of one closing a door, “It happened a couple of months ago, it’s over. No need to go rehashing old stuff. Just thought you might appreciate the punchline.”

 

Sam feels like the door has been shut in his face just as he was raising a foot to step in. He looks down into his own empty glass for inspiration and realizes that he doesn’t even know this guy’s name. 

 

“Gabriel,” the guy responds, sounding surprised. After a moment’s hesitation he smiles teasingly, “So  _now_  you’re interested?”  

 

This is the moment to make a decision, and Sam finds that he’s already made his. He hooks a foot around the leg of Gabriel’s stool to drag it closer and says, cringing inwardly at the cheesiness he’s picked up from Dean, “You’re asking that from awfully far away,” and laughs at Gabriel’s stunned expression until he’s grabbed by his collar and pulled down into a kiss. 

 

 

26.

 

Wanna hear a joke? Freedom.

 

Great isn’t it? The joke of Ages. The best fucking joke of all fucking time and I should know. It’s a joke on everyone. Me, my brothers. All of the lower-case-g gods. Humanity too. Humanity most- because for them it’s a joke played straight and one of these days someone (my Father) is going to jump out of the cake and say, ‘Smile, you’re on camera.’

 

I’ve been a slave. A willing one (if you can call not knowing of anything else ‘willing’) I lied and killed for my master, my Father.

 

Then my chains were broken and I was thrust forward into a freedom I didn’t want and lemme tell you, Janis Joplin wasn’t all that far off. Or was it whatsisname Kris Kritofferson? Who cares?

 

I broke out into more freedom. Freedom I chose, more blood on my now-corporeal hands and all the sex you could want.

 

All that, freedom and more bloody freedom and the only time in my life I’ve been at peace was the last time I died (the only time I really died). With my last bit of life I searched for safety and I was offered instinctive sanctuary by Sam bleeding-heart Winchester. I had no body, no power, my wings were ashes and a scorched mark on a floor that doesn’t exist anymore. In the most perfect chains that were ever made I was guarded (cosseted) by that beautiful-kind-gorgeous-warm soul and I was happy.

 

And then he died.

 

 

27.

 

Sam hasn’t ever needed to classify sex before. Sex used to be sex. It’s great fun except when your brother keeps sending you smses you every half-hour giving you tips and then it’s fun when the girl phones him and purrs at him to shut his fat mouth.

 

(It’s amazing when it’s with someone you love when you both planned on spending the rest of your life together but Sam tries not to think of that.)

 

There’s the sex you have with someone you like instinctively but don’t want to because he killed your brother over a hundred times and his brothers are trying to bring about the end of the world. It’s messy and bitey and you two keep fighting over who gets to be on top and who is more of a dick (he is, Sam knows, but Ga- that person doesn’t fall far behind) and the mornings after you keep finding fingernails have drawn blood in the weirdest places.

 

Then there’s the sex you have with that same somebody after he nearly dies (is willing to die) to save the world and his brother is willing to kill him to destroy it. It’s the one where you bite him so you can pretend not to notice the tears. The one where you see him tapping at those bitemarks later with a thoughtful look. The one where you occasionally find bronze-gold feathers on your pillow and put them in your bag pretending you’ll give it back to him.

 

Then there’s the sex you have with someone after he nearly dies (is willing to die) to bring you back from Hell. It’s the one where he whispers in his own language to you and it’s haunting and soothing at the same time, like every time you ever heard ‘Ave Maria’ and it took you back fifteen years ago to your brother’s high childish voice saying the words the way your mother said them to him.

 

It’s the one where he refuses not to notice the tears no matter how hard you bite at him.

 

Then there’s the sex with someone you like, really like and it’s very different from having sex with someone you want to spend the rest of your life with. (Sam knows which one this is, and he tries not to think of that.)

 

 

 

28.

 

“This is it then, rebel. It’s either fire, or having your head cut off,” the king said airily, pouring a drink for himself.

 

“You don’t have to do this,” Sam said earnestly looking up at him, awkwardly negotiating the metal collar chaining him to the floor. It’s difficult with his hands  chained behind him but he manages. The chains are entirely unnecessary with Gabriel’s strength but he ordered them anyway.

 

Gabriel tightened his hand briefly on the goblet he was holding to contain the rage pulsing through him. “You lied your way into my home and my bed. You planned to kill me. Let me tell you, I will enjoy giving the order,” his voice is deep and hard in a way he never lets it be lest it lose him the honor of being the ‘playboy king’.

 

“I threw them away, every knife, dart. Everything that I could have killed with, I threw them away for you.” Sam said, sounding desperate. Not for me, to save his own life, Gabriel thinks, even this proud man would beg. The idea that he might finally be able to break Sam pushes him through his despair, giving him a goal.

 

Sam looks down briefly and then looks up and says, “Your father and your brothers ruined this kingdom. Your brother, Lu-,” he winces as Gabriel finds himself flinching away and Gabriel hates him for being so kind even now. He goes on, “Your brother is preparing for a war on your country and you were spending your time gardening,” contempt seeps into his tone, “While people out there were starving you had orgies. We were doing what we had to.”

 

It’s true, every bit of it. Gabriel finishes everything in his goblet in one gulp and curses his father who alienated his stupid, self-righteous eldest brother and left his other stupid, rigid brothers in charge of the Three North Provinces. Then he curses the brothers who got themselves killed and left him in charge just as he had perfected his plan of disappearing.

 

“I can’t let you go, my ministers will lose all confidence in me,” Gabriel says, and he’s still balanced on tiptoes between being exhausted to his soul and being furious.

 

“Now you care about that,” Sam says, bitterly and Gabriel falls on the side of rage. He breaks away the chain from the floor and drags Sam to the window, an easy task with the unnatural strength passed down through his ancestors.

 

“Look,” he tells Sam and isn’t surprised when Sam looks irritated and confused. The boy never can understand anything that isn’t spelt out for him.

 

He waves a hand at the desert where the palace gardens used to be before he diverted the waters to the poorest parts of his capital city. The gesture encompasses the two Royal Guards at the palace gates where there used to be a hundred of them, his personal soldiers, lounging around- until he sent them to patrol the weakest borders. Out of the corner of his eye he can see the most wretched of his people moving towards the back of the palace where he’s set up some rudimentary housing and food for everyone who comes until work can be found for them.

 

Sam turns to him with a frown on his face.

 

Gabriel says, “I was only a king until I became a ruler for you. Because you taught me how to…: his voice roughens so he stops for a moment. When he’s got a hold of himself he snarls out, “And you repay me by not killing me. How magnanimous of you. What other tricks can I perform for you? A handstand? It’s a staple of the court jester!”

 

Sam looks like he wants to reach out but his hands are still chained up of course. Gabriel breaks all the chains and moves away immediately out of Sam’s reach. He carefully arranges them on the table with his back turned to Sam.

 

“Go from the window, there are guards outside the door. It should be easy for someone trained by the Clan.” Gabriel says.

 

“I’ll come back,” Sam says, with his characteristic determination.

 

“If you do I won’t have any choice but to execute you,” Gabriel snaps at him.

 

“I’ll come back.” Sam repeats like he hasn’t heard a word Gabriel said, “It’ll take me time to convince everyone that you aren’t like that anymore. Just give me some time okay?”

 

Gabriel counts the minutes he goes without answering. Nine minutes have passed when he hears the very soft sound of Sam moving away from him and after a moment he can only hear his own ragged breathing. When he feels moisture on the back of his hand he can’t imagine where it came from.

 

//

 

“We have to move soon, Your Majesty. The enemy’s troops advance,” the First General says quietly.

 

Gabriel slaps him on the back and says, “You can’t keep ‘Your Majesty’ing me forever. Call me Gabriel.”

 

“Your Ma-,” the First General stops and then tilts his head. His otherworldly blue eyes look at Gabriel thoughtfully and then he nods once, “Gabriel.” He walks off briskly, his customary beige cape wrapped around him.

 

Good man, Gabriel makes a note of him and then dismisses it all to continue watching the eastern border where the trees are. It’s another hour before people start emerging from the cover of the trees, plenty of them with the characteristic curved swords of the Clan and others with the black and green markings of the Salt Waters people.

 

“Dean,” the First General calls out, looking shocked for the first time that Gabriel’s ever noticed.

 

“Cas?” the guy who must be Dean calls back, sounding equally surprised but happy too.

 

Gabriel notes all of this and the other odd things surrounding him but really he’s just looking for…

 

“I told you I’d come,” Sam calls out, his hair hiding his eyes effectively even if the distance hadn’t.

 

“I never doubted you,” Gabriel shouts over the distance and is fiercely glad that after three years, today they’re going to be fighting beside each other again.

 

 

29.

 

It isn’t like he hadn’t asked about it. Mockingly, because Gabriel with snowy-white wings and a golden halo just had to be the most hilarious thing Sam could come up with.

 

“So what, you polish it or something?” Sam had asked, raising an eyebrow.

 

“It’s a part of my… ‘body’ for lack of a better word. Your human languages are so quaint.” Gabriel had said, “Anyway. I don’t polish it anymore than you guys polish any part of your body.”

 

“Is that supposed to be as dirty as it sounds?” Dean had interjected.

 

Gabriel had then waggled his eyebrows in a meaningful way at Sam and snapped himself away laughing when Dean lunged for him.

 

//

It wasn’t metallic, or even golden really, the way Sam had expected. As far as one _expects_ a halo, which is not at all unless you’re Sam Winchester and going o- uh…dati- well, being close with a rogue archangel.

 

It didn’t hover over their heads either, that was some idiot taking artistic license to heart apparently. Gabriel let his real form bleed through enough for Sam to see the necklace resting at the base of his throat.

 

“Pretty,” Sam had commented and Gabriel’s eyes had narrowed.

 

“Enough power in there to level this world bucko. Wouldn’t go calling it ‘pretty’ if I were you,” he had said, in the tone of one making an observation in passing.

 

Sam had felt the words (and the tone) go straight to his dick. He flushed and looked away. Gabriel’s gaze on him sharpened, “Like that, is it?” he had murmured, amusement undercut by the beginnings of arousal in his voice.

 

//

There are pictures, they come and go like shadows in a dark alleyway. In some ways these are more frightening because you can’t kid yourself that the nuclear weaponry being prepared or the serial killer that’s going searching for kids for easy killing is your imagination.

 

But the other stuff’s true too- the group of hunters that saved an entire town in the nick of time or the girl that’s quite literally dreaming up the cure to cancer, even if it will take her twenty more years to perfect it and twenty more after that to get it out on the market and make it affordable.

 

 When you touch it…don’t. Don’t do it, because it’s too intense for tears. Every prayer that exists (and it doesn’t matter what the religion is) comes straight to this. To God’s Messenger. It’s just that they don’t have anywhere to go to anymore and Gabriel can’t bear to destroy them. He hates them but he takes on his Father’s burden anyway.

 

Gabriel never cries. Sam would hold him if he did. Instead he shows Gabriel ridiculous movies and directs him gently to the nice prayers. And helps him avenge the ones who send the others.

 

//

“Marriage is a contract. Trust me, I was there when you humans came up with it. This is nothing like that, this is like comparing the Who to Backstreet Boys!” Gabriel emphasizes ‘nothing’ the way only he can, by snapping up loud fireworks that give out ribbons with ‘NOTHING’ written on them.

 

“You’re the god of trickery, and you’ve had a double life since you were born. Of course I don’t trust you,” Sam mocks him because it’s the only way he can keep from breaking down into a needy mess. If he did Gabriel would be out and away yesterday, and because he’s an archangel he can actually do that.

 

“Think about it,” Gabriel orders, “It’s for eternity so really _think_ about it. If you Winchesters even can think.”

 

Sam turns away because he’s sure his nose and ears are going red the way they always do when he can’t keep from wanting to cry. He recovers enough to say, “Yeah, I’m sure I can manage a bit of thinking. Sometimes. Like, you know that day we got you in a circle of holy fire. Or that time in Toronto.”

 

Gabriel makes an indignant noise at hearing ‘Toronto’ but Sam hadn’t agreed not to mention it. Dean and Gabriel had and Bobby had rolled his eyes and Cas was probably saving it up for when he needed Dean to temporarily be a little less dickish.

 

//

“You’re sure aren’t you? Gabriel, you’re absolutely sure?” Sam asks “Because this is it. The big one.”

 

Gabriel smiles at him, the mocking edge softened today, “I asked, didn’t I? Believe it or not, I don’t usually go making stupid decisions I’ll regret. I leave that to you guys, humans in general.”

 

Gabriel’s giving him a searching look that has an uncertain edge to it, “I’m sure too,” Sam tells him. He isn’t lying and that relieves him enough that he smiles down at Gabriel the way he’s never quite dared to before, with his heart in his eyes.

 

Gabriel’s face shuts down and while he’s looking at the floor Sam thinks dully, ‘this is it, he’s going,’ and he knows it’s better that Gabriel goes because he couldn’t hide everything for a literal eternity. With the halo they might have ended up sharing every feeling. But. Now that it’s out of reach he knows he wanted what Gabriel was offering.

 

Gabriel grabs Sam by the shoulder and says, “Sam,” and stops. He raises his head, and his eyes dart everywhere before they rest on Sam. He says, “Sam,” again and Sam can hear it like it’s a poem or a symphony or something. Everything that Gabriel can’t say, not right now anyway. Sam can wait, he’s got an (literal) eternity.

 

He stoops down so he can be nose to nose and forehead to forehead with Gabriel and ever so slowly he feels the necklace coming around his throat, adjusting itself around his neck and then it snicks close. Sam can feel Gabriel’s smile where he’s kissing him and he can feel Gabriel’s love simply everywhere. Like a symphony or something.

 

 

30.

 

Dust as far as the eye could see. With an archangel’s eyes that was a lot of dust.

 

Gabriel stopped where he stood with an uncharacteristic frown on his face. He had realized that young Sam’s dreams couldn’t exactly be…pleasant but he hadn’t expected this.

 

“I don’t dream about you,” Sam said and Gabriel whipped around, surprised.

 

“Yeah, I’m not part of your dream. Real me here,” he gestured to himself.

 

Sam’s suspicious look breaks down and the exhaustion comes through clearly now, “Why are you here? Lucifer had other things to do so you’re his stand-in?”

 

“No,” Gabriel says roughly, he feels like being gentle and it’s unfamiliar enough to make him rage. “I wanted to… I wanted to talk to you. In private, without your brother around calling me a monster because that’s really only funny the first twenty times.”

 

Sam pinches the bridge of his nose like he’s staving off a headache, then he turns his back on Gabriel and walks away. Gabriel follows and soon sees that Sam has a destination in mind. They climb the tallest bit of ground there is and Sam slowly sits down, arms around his knees.

 

“This is all there’s going to be, when Lucifer’s finally got me. When Dean’s dead,” Sam says, his voice thin like he’s been talking just to hear a human voice. “There won’t be anything left except him in me and any angel who Falls with him.”

 

The first time they met, Gabriel felt that he and Sam were two of a kind and reacted violently against it. He can hear ‘when the world ends’ in the way he says ‘when Dean’s dead,’ and that’s the moment he’s through with blaming Sam for his brothers going to war. They only ever needed an excuse. It isn’t Sam’s fault that his brother deserves his love when Gabriel’s brothers don’t. It isn’t Sam’s fault Gabriel never learned how to stop loving them anyway.

 

He looks out over the wasteland that Lucifer promises to make (honeyed, sweet promises, that it’s all for the best and he believes it. That damn self-righteous asshole _believes_ that he’s making things right.) of his second home. The home he chose. He blindly reaches out a hand to curl around Sam’s neck. Sam stiffens up and stays stiff for the longest time while Gabriel can’t find the words he needs. Then comes the moment where Sam suddenly relaxes back into the touch, as if he gets what Gabriel isn’t saying. Or as if he’s willing to blindly trust in the goodness of others just one more time.

 

With an archangel’s eyes you can see far, and somewhere in the distance Gabriel can see a fir tree growing slowly.

 

 

31.

 

“Falling is a state of mind,” Gabriel says stiffly. “Even when I left I always meant to go back. It wasn’t actually rebelling so much as …taking a leave of absence.”

 

“Now you can’t go home.” Sam says, wishing it was a question. He reaches out to Gabriel who flinches away.

 

“Leave it,” Gabriel says sharply and snaps himself away when Sam tries to argue. It’s three days before Gabriel reappears and Sam gets the message. They’re not talking about it.

 

They still aren’t talking about it when Gabriel hands Sam a packet and goes off to talk to some old friends about Famine. When Sam opens the packet it contains all the papers needed for a new life in the name of ‘Lucas Taylor’. Birth certificate, credit cards, various mostly unremarkable school papers. Then Sam sees there’s a second set of papers and they’re made out for a ‘Castiel Milton’. Sam wonders whether this is a tribute to Anna or a reminder to Cas of how far they are Falling.

 

They aren’t talking about it when Gabriel grimly asks him to teach him how to use a gun and any other weapons they might need. Sword fighting is all Gabriel knows but he picks this up very fast and Sam learns that all the angels are warriors first and foremost. Sam’s glad of it when a quick bullet through the Pestilence’s head gives them just enough time to grab his ring and get gone but he wishes he didn’t have to be.

 

Gabriel snarls at him to go away, fire blazing in his eyes, when Sam catches him sitting in their motel’s deserted parking lot with a handful of crumbling feathers and a devastated look on his face.

 

Once, after they talk to Death and get his ring, Gabriel says, “I’m forgetting everything before the 12th century,” in a distant tone like it’s interesting but nothing important. Sam later finds half-moons on his palm where he clenched them so as not to reach out. Sam cleans them up, the last thing they need right now is for him to get septicemia or tetanus or something.

 

The day after they trap Lucifer and Michael in the Cage, they leave the nearest hospital to Stull Cemetery (Mercy Hospital or Hope or something like that) still unsure about whether Adam will ever wake up but they’re all still grateful (Dean grudgingly) to Michael for having given him up before he fell when Gabriel begged him for this one last thing.

 

Sam’s sitting down on a couch in Bobby’s house just staring blankly out of a window when Gabriel sits down beside him and says, “Hey, kiddo,” softly.

 

Sam wants to smile but his muscles aren’t really obeying. It’s like smiling is an abstract concept. Gabriel shakes his head slightly and Sam drops the attempt and leans into Gabriel, letting the whole of his right side touch Gabriel’s left side. After a long moment in which muscles that had been tense for almost a year start relaxing, Gabriel presses something into Sam’s hand.

 

It’s a tiny vial, small enough to be hung on a neck chain, and it’s filled with a beautiful black viscous liquid. As Sam looks on, the liquid turns inside out and becomes a warm golden brown color that slowly deepens to black again. At the back of Sam’s mind rings happy laughter, Dad and Dean’s laughter, Castiel’s rough bark, Bobby’s low laugh, Gabriel’s guffaws, and others that he hadn’t even know he remembered.

 

“It’s the very last of my Grace. I want you to keep it,” Gabriel says quietly.

 

Sam jerks his head up to look at Gabriel.

 

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Gabriel warns in a tired voice.

 

Sam holds the vial tightly in his left hand and raises the other to haul Gabriel in as close as he can. Sam gently strokes Gabriel’s hair until he loses his stiffness and curls up into Sam. For the very first time, Gabriel sleeps. 

 

 

32.

 

“What would you have done?” Gabriel asks suddenly

 

Sam looks away from the book he’s reading to peer down at where Gabriel is craning his head up from Sam’s lap to look at Sam.

 

“If this is about burning dinner again,” Sam begins, a little exasperated but mostly embarrassed because he’s twenty two and he can’t make his own dinner without setting off the fire alarm.

 

Gabriel waves that away impatiently then rolls over on the bed to settle onto his stomach and support his head with his elbows. “I don’t mean that. What if I hadn’t ever come?”

 

Sam has a moment where his heart feels like a stone and he can’t breathe before he gasps out, “What the hell man? Why?” he laughs unsteadily and says, “Not like you to be philosophical.”

 

“I could be philosophical,” Gabriel says, with a half-smile, “I was pointing your ancestors towards philosophy when all they wanted to was sleep, eat and fuck.”

 

Sam doesn’t know whether to laugh because it’s true or be awestruck because it’s _true_. He shrugs instead, “You didn’t do a very good job then. That’s all humankind wants to do now.”

 

“Except Samuel J. Winchester, who needs to spend the summer after graduating- studying!” Gabriel mocks.

 

Sam kicks him lazily, “It’s interesting, and this isn’t course material anyway.”

 

Gabriel catches his foot and turns it wooden for a moment before turning it back with a laugh when Sam thwaps him with the book.

 

“I don’t know,” Sam says finally. “After that fire…when Brady died. Jess just. I loved her, you know? And she left me. I don’t blame her,” he smiles wryly. “Finding out a demon’s possessing your friend to get to your boyfriend would be hard for anyone. I don’t know what I would have done if you weren’t there.”

 

“Your brother would have taken care of you,” Gabriel says, squeezing his leg reassuringly.

 

Sam smiles gratefully down at him, “Yeah, but he couldn’t have stayed here. Visiting me like this is fine but it’s not in him to stick to one place for years. It’s the open road for him and I hate that life. I’ve been planning ways to get out of it since I was fourteen for chrissakes.”

 

Gabriel rubs soothing circles into the skin and presses a gentle kiss to the calf for good measure. “Then I turned up, your knight in shining armor,” he laughs at Sam’s incredulous expression.

 

“You tried to kill my philosophy of law professor,” Sam reminds him.

 

“He deserved it,” Gabriel reminds him. “He deserved it for being a philosophy of law professor. The other stuff was just garnish,” Gabriel says with a wicked expression. Sam’s expression teeters between pissy disapproval and resigned amusement.

 

“He’s in jail. He’s going to stay in jail, you can’t kill him.” Sam tells him, because with Gabriel’s selective memory it’s best to frequently remind him of rules he doesn’t like but should obey.

 

“I would have been better off without you.” Gabriel remarks, now gently running his fingers from Sam’s thigh to his toes, in a way that always makes Sam shiver. “More free,” he adds, lifting his fingers to lick the tips and run the sticky fingers down the arch of Sam’s foot.

 

Sam snorts, “You would have been miserable. Running away from your responsibilities and playing pranks on random people until you had to stand up for something,” he gently runs one hand through Gabriel’s hair, “And then you’d probably end up dead.”

 

Gabriel raises an eyebrow at him and then says in a sing-song tone, “Someone’s pro-jec-ting.” He dodges a half-hearted swat from Sam then says, “Seriously, kid. I’m not the hero type. That’s you. If I wasn’t here you would’ve done some crazy-ass thing and gotten yourself killed or worse.”

 

“What’s worse?” Sam asks putting the book on the bedside table so he can settle down into bed with Gabriel.

 

“You would’ve sacrificed yourself for the good of the world,” Gabriel says distantly. “People like you…heroes like you, always do.”

 

Sam hauls him in and kisses him firmly, “I’m fine. I get it. I would’ve crashed and burned without you.” He kisses Gabriel again, this time letting his tongue sneak out to tease at Gabriel’s lips, “But you’re here, I’m here. Let go, will you?”

 

Gabriel pulls back to say, “Don’t close your eyes, hmm? Do me this favor,” and shifts in to kiss him again looking directly into welcoming green.

 

 

 

33.

 

“And I’m just supposed to trust you on this.” Sam says, a sneer twisting his face.

 

“I’m telling you the truth, you stupid ape!” the Trickster, who is Loki apparently, shouts at him.

 

“All I know about you is that you kill people for shits and giggles and you’ve been killing my brother over and over again for three weeks of Tuesdays.” Sam says, his calm voice masking his fury, “I don’t give a damn about what you think is the truth. Just give me my brother back.”

 

“So you can go off and destroy the world. Nice, kid. I thought you were supposed to be the good guy.” 

 

“I am not going to destroy the world.” Sam says for the tenth time and he’s gone from amused to incredulous to irritated to furious. “Frankly if you haven’t managed it by now I don’t see why you think one stupid ape could.”

 

“You do it,” Loki tells him. Sam shakes his head and has this infuriating _pitying_ look on his face and Loki does what he’s promised himself he wouldn’t. He grabs hold of Sam and drags him forward.

 

First step: Dean’s on meat hooks and some blurry, smoky creature is murmuring promises at him. Sam’s gorge rises as that thing pets Dean’s cheek.

 

“They deserve it. He sold his soul so his rich mother would die and leave him her estate. She sold hers for ten years of the best drugs. The other ones didn’t have to bother selling.”

 

 

“He’ll say yes tomorrow,” Loki tells Sam grimly and steps forward again.

 

Second step: Sam’s lying on a floor, next to three empty booze bottles sucking at a woman’s arm.

 

“Ruby,” Loki tells him, “You’re drinking demon blood because it makes your powers stronger. She’ll trick you into letting Lucifer out of his cage.”

 

Sam desperately asks, “Does she help me get him out?”

 

Loki’s lips twist because he knows ‘him’ is Dean and always will be and he steps forward again.

 

Sam sees himself in a white suit and Dean is pointing a gun, the _Colt_ at him.

 

He tries to run to Dean but Loki holds him back with unnatural strength.

 

“You’re only invisible, and _safe_ , as long as I’m holding you,” Loki tells him.

 

Sam looks down at him and says, “Dean. He’s…he’s going to shoot me.”

 

“Not you.” Loki tells him, awkwardly looking away from him “That’s Lucifer, you were his true vessel, the prefect meatsuit for him. There’s nothing of you in there.”

 

Sam shakes his head, the evidence is in front of him but it’s not real, it _can’t_ be. Then he gets it, “You’re making this up,” he says softly, trying to control his anger.

 

Loki looks bitter, “What? You think I’m trying to.”

 

“Trick me, yeah. Isn’t that what you do? Trickster?” Sam says. “Demigod or not, you don’t have the juice to take me to the future.”

 

Loki’s eyes flash gold and then they’re back in the abandoned attic of the motel Sam and Dean had set up base in and Loki is slamming Sam down on a dusty, creaky sofa. Sam has enough time to wonder whether he’s going to die before Loki’s is kissing him. If you can call it kissing, there’s Loki’s teeth biting at Sam’s lips and Loki’s fingers are digging into his skin so deep that he can bet there will be bruises later.

 

When Loki lets go, Sam finds himself short of breath. “Please,” Loki says, not looking at him, “You have to let him go.”

 

“What happens if I do?” Sam asks, “Forget the world. What happens to _him_?”

 

Loki looks at him with this tired, knowing look.

 

“He’ll stay there, in Hell?” Sam asks, and Loki keeps looking at him. “Worse? What’s worse than Hell?” he asks, horrified.

 

“Look,” Sam stands up and moves over to Loki to grasp his shoulders. “Just get Dean back here. We’ll tell him about all of this and then we’ll figure a way out of it. Together.”

 

Loki laughs and it’s this hollow, despairing sound that ends in what sounds like a sob.

 

“Loki, I swear,” Sam says, eyes wide and earnest, voice hopeful. Loki looks at him, and he looks exhausted.

 

Loki passes a hand gently over Sam Winchester’s forehead, and Sam’s eyes slowly close and everything that had happened after his brother’s latest death was wiped from his memory.

 

“Tomorrow,” he decides, as he had decided the time before and the time before that for three weeks worth of Tuesdays. He sends both Winchester boys back to their beds and back to Monday night.

 

 

34.

 

Gabriel had already figured out Sam liked to hurt. It was the way his breath came faster when Gabriel gripped his wrists and left marks. The way he let Gabriel hold his hair a little too tight and thrust a little too deep into his mouth. 

 

It was that time when Gabriel had flipped Sam onto his stomach and fucked him slow and deep until Sam was nearly raw from it but he'd said, “No, please. More,” when Gabriel had pulled out and was stroking himself off lazily. The need that broke Sam’s voice had pushed Gabriel over the edge and he had come all over Sam’s back.

 

It was the way he’ll bite his lips hard enough to bleed if Gabriel doesn’t hurt him enough.

 

Gabriel just hadn’t quite realized how much he liked hurting Sam until Sam was smiling a shy half-smile up at him when Gabriel had thought he was buried in Hell and he wanted to kiss Sam’s lips hard enough to bruise and then bruise him everywhere else.

 

35.

 

“Dean says I should put a bell on you. Like one of those cat collars,” Sam murmurs slowly stroking Gabriel’s cock. They’re lying on the bed, Gabriel spreadeagled on it, with leather cuffs on his wrists that hadn’t been attached to the headboard this time, Sam’s lying on his side and teasing Gabriel lazily. “Is that why you do it?” Sam asks, “You drop in unexpectedly and annoy us so that I’ll put a collar on you?” 

 

Gabriel moans and thrusts his hips up and comes and Sam knows he’s guessed right. He gently takes off the cuffs and he can see the slight shimmer that means Gabriel’s getting back the access to his Grace that had been cut off by the Enochian on the cuffs.

 

Gabriel raises his hand and Sam grabs it and forces his fingers apart so he can’t snap himself away, he’s well-aware that he can only do so because Gabriel lets him.

 

“You promised,” he growls at Gabriel, the way he has to every time after he takes the cuffs off. Gabriel shivers a little and the unperturbed mask dropped to reveal the submission that had looked to have disappeared with the cuffs.

 

Sam runs his fingers through Gabriel’s hair soothingly until Gabriel is sprawling back against him. Then he presses gentle kisses on his face, neck, the raw skin Gabriel won’t heal on his wrists. He murmurs words of caring and lets Gabriel know how _good_ he is but nothing more, anything more and promise or not Gabriel will leave and not return.

 

After a while he tugs Gabriel towards the bathroom where he had made Gabriel snap up a bathtub and keep the water hot when they first came in. He doesn’t say anything now. Just settles in and pulls Gabriel in between his legs, soaps him up with the fruitiest thing there is in the selection so Gabriel has something to grumble about later. While he rinses them both down Gabriel nips at his fingers playfully and Sam kisses him on the nose. That makes Gabriel look like an offended cat.

 

Gabriel makes to go away again, but Sam shoves him towards the TV and tells him to put on something that he’ll like and that won’t give Sam a headache. He doesn’t put on clothes and doesn’t make Gabriel put them on either because when they’re naked it makes Gabriel just that little bit more relaxed.

 

Then they watch the TV for hours only they don’t; they watch each other. Or rather, they don’t, they actually cuddle. Gabriel is lying down with his head on Sam’s thigh, one hand tucked under his cheek and the other wrapped around loosely around Sam’s ankle. Sam is so busy looking at a serene Gabriel that he doesn’t even notice that he’s absentmindedly stroking Gabriel’s side and chest.

 

Very often Sam falls asleep just sitting like this with Gabriel, occasionally he even wakes up this way.

 

Lately it’s been happening more and more.

 

 

36\. Part (1/3)

 

Sam passed the street corner frequently. It was a pretty popular place for bunters, there weren’t any advertisements nearby to catch the eye and the people who had food in the two cafes on the street generally sat outside.

 

Sam had never seen this guy before. He’s sure he would have remembered the cheeky smile; the dark glasses; the accompanying guide German Shepherd, and above all the violin which had (ironically, Sam supposed) a harp painted on it. Nevertheless there’s a sense of…not deja vu but actual recognition, like something you’ve only ever seen before from the corner of your eye stepping out in front of you.

 

 

He left and took another route to and from his office for a few days. His days were safe but in the nights he dreamt of warm amber eyes lightening to gold and gruff promises to keep him safe. He awoke with, “Gabriel,” on his lips.

 

 

 

37\. (Part 2/3)

 

Sam rolled under the gate and ran to his car. He had dropped his case somewhere in the altercation, after that crazy woman with black ( _black_ ) eyes had tried to put a knife in him and he had put the case in the way. From behind him came a nasty breaking sound and he risked a glance backward and gaped at the broken iron gate and the woman stepping through it.

 

“Stand back, kid,” he turned around to see the blind violinist and his dog standing there.

 

“Christ, come on. We have to get out of here,” Sam grabbed at the man who…smiled at him. Straight at him as if he could see where Sam was. Then the woman was on them and the guy took off his glasses and yes, they were gold and they were…beautiful.

 

The woman snarled and screamed and her head bent backwards at an unnatural angle and smoke started coming out of her mouth. A moment later, the woman collapsed and the guy neatly caught her and propped her up against the wall. Sam slowly slid down the same wall a hand’s length away and sat down. The German Shepherd came over to him and snuffled at his face and Sam patted it, feeling the shaking in his hands decrease.

 

“She’s alive,” the guy said with some relief, and put his glasses back on.

 

“What the hell just happened?” Sam asked.

 

The guy looked at him and licked his lips in what looked like a nervous gesture before he said, “Look, there’s this bar if you go back the way you came and turn right at the end of this road. I’ll just deliver the lady back to her home and you wait for me there with Kelly, ok?”

 

“But what if she goes batshit again?” Sam sits up, “We need to get her to a hospital!”

 

“Freeze up right there bucko, I know what I’m doing.” Sam was on edge until the guy said, softly, “Trust me,” and it sounded like every time he had heard it in his dreams recently.

 

He said, as a test, “Gabriel?” and the guy tensed up.

 

“So you remember?” Gabriel asked.

 

Sam shrugged, “Not much.” 

 

“Enough to trust me on this?”

 

Sam hesitated but nodded. The guy smiled slowly, sweetly at him, hefted the woman up over his shoulder and shifted his glasses down just enough to offer a peek of those brilliant eyes and then vanished. Sam gaped at the spot where Gabriel had been, he could have sworn he hadn’t even blinked.

 

He had left the dog behind too. Sam let his head fall back against the wall and wondered what his life had become.

 

 

 

38\. (Part 3/3)

 

“Sam died,” Gabriel said, face bent down and inspecting his glass as if it held the secrets to the universe. At this point Sam wouldn’t be surprised if it did. He unconsciously made an enquiring noise.

 

Gabriel looked up and said, “You. My universe’s you.”

 

Starting at the age of fourteen, Sam had read all the sci-fi he could get his hands on, he had an odd feeling he knew where this was going.

 

Gabriel told him. About parallel universes. About angels and demons, and the thin line separating them. About how Dean’s body (not his Dean, thank god, and Sam surreptitious called him once to hear his voice) had been taken and switched with some stupid devout kid who thought he was saving the world when he allowed Michael (who was apparently a holy terror) to take his true Vessel. How Sam, that universe’s Sam, had allowed the Devil in and hoped to take both of them into the Devil’s Cage as a last ditch effort to save the world. And failed.

 

“There was nothing left. Michael and Lucifer destroyed each other and destroyed the world in the crossfire.” Gabriel said quietly, “I was…I tried to save Sam but he.” His voice had thickened, and he paused for a few moments then said, “I’m a coward you see so I wanted to live even when I wanted to die. So I came to your universe.”

 

“I dreamt you said you’d protect me.” Sam said, calling Kelly the German Shepherd to him and patting him to have a legitimate reason to look away and hide his embarrassment.

 

Gabriel looked surprised (though really, how to read him with those glasses between his eyes and the world?) and said, “Yeah I. I found you, when I first arrived and you were a kid. Less than six months. I promised I’d protect you. I visited later but only when you were asleep,” he shrugged and said, “I kept my promise.”

 

Sam wondered, with a brief and painful spasm of jealousy, whether it had been Gabriel’s way of honoring his Sam who wasn’t Sam- even if they did have the same parents and looked the same and even sometimes, Sam glanced at Gabriel, felt the same.

 

“Because I’m him,” Sam said. He was surprised at how hoarse his voice was.

 

“No,” Gabriel said, tilting his head in a birdlike manner, “You’re not as…angry or hopeless. Or as desperate. You aren’t him.” Gabriel’s mouth curled up ruefully, “Mostly.”

 

Sam shook his head in irritation at not being able to see Gabriel’s eyes, it made him entirely incapable of reading the deeper meaning (feelings) that Gabriel was hiding behind his measured words, “You aren’t blind! Why do you wear those?” Sam gestured at the dark glasses.

 

Gabriel’s mouth pulled down in a moue, “Don’t think I want to do it, do you? For some reason, the supernatural in your world is mostly in its own places. Angels in Heaven, demons in Hell and the rest in Purgatory. Before I arrived anyway. In this world, my powers activate only when my eyes are uncovered. If I just went around like that,” Gabriel made a complicated gesture with his hands that resembled nothing so much as every time Sam failed at opening his dog, Bartholemew’s, food tins. Gabriel continued, “Every creature that feeds on magic in this universe would be gathering to have a taste.”

 

 “You need to teach me,” Sam says abruptly because all this time that Gabriel’s been talking and Sam’s been thinking, “You need to teach me how to fight these things.” Sam puts a mental block on every part of him that wants to explore this intriguing, brilliant man in front of him and says, “And then you need to go. It’s fine, I understand that you wanted to protect me because of him. But I’m all grown up now and I can take care of myself.”

 

He doesn’t say, ‘I can’t be your shrine to a man that never even existed for me.’

 

Gabriel seems to hear it though, his mouth curves up slowly into a wicked smile. He drawls, “Like I said, you two aren’t anything at all alike. Except when you are.”

 

For a brief moment, Sam wants to break something and then he stands up and bites out, “I mean it.”

 

“So did I,” Gabriel says, with a gently mocking tone.

 

Sam hesitates but when Gabriel says nothing more he slowly turns around to walk out of the bar. A jarringly cold hand grips his own and Gabriel moves to face him from just one step away, “Your souls are the same,” he says quietly, “Brave and bright. I came to you for him, but I stayed for you- Sam Winchester.”

 

Sam looks down, from this close he can see the gold of Gabriel’s eyes behind the glass of the spectacles. He moves one step forward.

 

 

 

39\. (for this part, TW: torture)

 

The skin was being peeled off finely enough that there was very little muscle clinging to it. Then the demon of the day licked the knife clean and slashed it down from Sam’s mouth down to his navel.

 

There was no end, no oblivion.

 

//

 

“You can sleep,” the smiling, yellow-eyed demon said, “Just say ‘yes,’ and show me how well you can judge the souls that come here. Show me how well you can punish them.”

 

A black-eyed, smoky demon stood opposite Sam and the yellow eyed demon stood in between holding a thin, dangerous looking whip with a barb at the end. Sam knew that if he said, ‘yes,’ just one little word and the whip would be in his hands. If he didn’t, the black-eyed demon would get it.

 

Sam shook his head and closed his eyes. The cords binding him to the living walls of Hell tightened and the whip came down on him with a ‘crack’.

 

//

 

“They deserved it,” the yellow eyed demon said, lazily, gesturing towards the panicked souls surrounding them, “Not all of them are like you, Sam, selling your soul when your brother puts himself between you and a knife. Most people want money, power.” It cocked its head and said, “Filth, all of them.”

 

Sam said, “No.” He would have screamed when the fire was burning his legs but they had already burnt his lungs.

 

// 

 

Sam breathed in air, not smoke, for the first time in twenty years. He staggered out of the hole where he had been lying in his coffin and collapsed onto the grass. Wet, green grass. He’d forgotten the feeling of wet grass.

 

Suddenly, a man appeared right in front of him and Sam yelped involuntarily.

 

Sam grabbed the nearest thing to hand, a broken piece of his coffin and swung it up, “Who the hell are you?”

 

The guy grinned wickedly, “Archangel, former messenger and general skivvy of the Lord and part time Trickster. You can call me Gabriel.”

 

Sam asked him, “Did you…did you save me from Hell? Why did you do that?” and his awe at seeing an archangel comes out in his voice. And now he remembers dimly, a hand closing firmly around his left forearm and dragging him away; a rich voice telling him he could sleep; a sharp sword cutting off whatever of Hell tried to touch him; a pair of wings enclosing his raw self and letting it heal. Golden eyes blazing furiously at the extent of his hurt.

 

Gabriel’s mouth softens into a more genuine smile, “Your brother found me and let’s say he was…convincing.” Surprisingly, it only makes him look a little more awe inspiring.

 

“Dean?” Sam laughs, “He saved me after all. And I was so close to becoming a demon. You don’t know…”

 

Gabriel interrupted and said, with feeling, “Believe me, kiddo, I do. I thought I’d be too late and then everything would have gone boom.” His expressive lips made a popping motion at ‘boom’.

 

Sam scrunched up his forehead and asked, “What are you talking about?”

 

“I’m talking about the fact that you are the Righteous Man and that we have work to do. An Apcalypse to prevent.” Gabriel said and put his hand on the matching print on Sam’s forearm and flew him away.

 

 

 

40.

 

“Oh please, you’re a groupie,” Gabriel says, curling a hand around Sam’s neck and pulling him down.

 

“Groupie of what? Dicks with wings?” Sam mocks, because he can now, with Gabriel because Gabriel knows he doesn’t mean it. He brushes a kiss against Gabriel’s lips and pulls back.

 

“Power.” Gabriel murmurs, and Sam stiffens in his arms. He shoves against Gabriel and scrambles off the bed.

 

“What the hell man? You think this is about me wanting to get off on your _power_?” Sam splutters.

 

“What else is it?” Gabriel snaps, suddenly furious, “True love?” he asks mockingly.

 

“Get out,” Sam says, dangerously quietly, “Get the fuck out.”

 

Gabriel doesn’t hesitate for a moment, and he wonders, when he appears in Spain, whether Sam really did say ‘Running away is your forte, right?’ just before he disappeared or whether he had thought it himself.

 

Whichever it is, the thought haunts him badly enough that he returns in three days and drops in on a vampire trying to eat…drink, whatever, _kill_ Sam. It’s annoying. He blasts it into more pieces than humans will ever be able to measure.

 

“Not that I’m powerful, fine! But then what is it about?” Gabriel demands

 

“True love,” Sam sneers, taking off his shirt and trying to wipe the blood off his hands and face. Gabriel decides not to snap him clean for that bit of surliness. Dean barges in, just as he’s about to ask for a proper answer and Gabriel leaves again.

 

Later that night Gabriel peeks in, and sure enough, Dean’s gone out. So he comes in and there’s a Snickers being flung at him. Sam’s holding an open bottle of beer.

 

“Expecting someone special?” Gabriel jokes weakly.

 

Sam swigs out of the bottle and says, “Shove it Gabriel. Not right now.”

 

Gabriel looks at the Snickers and says, “Kiddo, you…I know you alright? I knew Lucifer, even before he Fell he was always attracted to power. It’s not that I mind but.”

 

Sam says, “Gabriel, I’m trying very hard not to smash this bottle right now. Just shut up and listen for a bit. For once in your immortal life, get it into your head that you don’t know everything.”

 

Gabriel can’t help a sudden grin and a raised eyebrow that’s meant to say, ‘Look who’s talking’ and Sam gives him an endearingly rueful look in return. He doesn’t say anything though. Gabriel’s patient, he honestly is, but for the longest time Sam just looks around the room, glancing at Gabriel occasionally and biting his lips and not saying anything.

 

Gabriel doesn’t say anything even when Sam moves towards him, his firm stride at odds with his uncertain expression and then Sam cups his face gently and just…looks at him. It’s almost painful, how open his face is, Gabriel wants to look away because he’s not the right person for…there are better people. Honest, brave people without blood on their hands. Sam deserves better and is only here, with Gabriel because he doesn’t know what he’s worth.

 

He was always a coward though so he doesn’t say so, just pulls Sam down so he can kiss him deeply and feel the warmth of Sam’s touch call his Grace to wrap them both up in a world where they can be alone together for just a little bit.

 

 

 

41.

 

He didn’t actually expect anything. The only way you can walk into a situation where winning means being the Devil and an angry Archangel’s roommate for all eternity is by firmly telling yourself it’s all just a bad dream and your Dad’s going to wake you up and tell you he warned you not to have that burrito before going to bed.

 

Sam certainly hadn’t expected to dive head first into the Devil’s Cage just to be surrounded by seven hued music (and there’s nothing worse than people who keep saying ‘that isn’t possible’ about something that actually happened _._ ) If you can imagine wings in audible form then you know what grabbed hold of Sam and fought off Lucifer’s clawing hold and settled him down in the backseat of the Impala with a promise to see him later. Sam doesn’t know why but he thinks,  _Gabriel?_  and gets that familiar, raucous laugh in response. 

 

 

 

42.

 

Right up until the last moment (despite the teasing, despite resting all of his hopes for a bloodless future on Sam) he keeps telling himself he isn’t obsessed; right up until he knows he’s going to die and the last thing he does before facing his beloved brother is give a desperate glance at Sam and hope he knows that there was more than obsession there- that he was loved.

 

 

 

43.

 

It’s easy to think, ‘it’s only sex’ when: you don’t think you’re going to live out the month; you don’t think he is going to live out the month; you’re almost certain the _world_ isn’t going to live out the month; and you don’t really have the time to think about anything except saving the world. It’s even easier to think, ‘just sex’ when it’s all four at the same time.

 

It isn’t easy to think, ‘this doesn’t mean anything’ when: you’ve saved him from dying at his brother’s hands; he’s saved you from dying at his brothers’ hands; you’ve saved the world and kissed each other breathless in relief; and you really have nothing to do except think about how much he (or she or whatever, since archangels don’t have a sex) means to you.  It’s just too damn easy to say, ‘I love you’ when it’s all four at the same time.

 

It’s even easier when he writes it on your skin later, (because he can’t say it, he can talk the hind legs off a donkey but he can’t say anything that really matters until you make him mad).

 

  1. (It’s easiest after you make him mad that one time just to hear him say the words.)  



 

 

 

44.

 

Sam teaches Gabriel how to play chess.

 

Seriously, somehow in all the millennia he’s been around he never learned. Oh, he knows the _moves._ But Sam teaches him how to _play_.

 

Teaches him to use his pawns carefully, because the humblest of the pieces can transform into a queen. Teaches him not to always use his knight as the first and last line of defense because being tricksy is good until it becomes stale and predictable. Teaches him the flexible Ruy Lopez (where the more experienced player will control the battlefield), the risky but clever King’s Indian Defense (where Black fools White into thinking he has the advantage and then lays ruin to him), the humble but useful Pirc Defense and then teaches him when to go with his instincts instead.

 

Gabriel teaches him that it is both the queen’s greatest strength and her greatest weakness that her only aim is to protect the king.

 

Sam teaches him that ‘check’ isn’t the same thing as ‘checkmate’. And Gabriel begins to understand.

 

 

 

45.

 

What Gabriel hadn't considered before starting is that it's as much as a tease for Gabriel as it is for Sam.

 

Actually, more so. For Sam, the brush of Grace against him (the soft skin on the back of his neck, the small of his back, or even running against his lips) makes him shiver because of the forbidden intimacy and because of the images that rush into his mind. Because of the nights that Gabriel spends with him, taking him apart. 

 

For Gabriel, when he pulls out the wings that are manifestations of his Grace and spreads them out (hidden from everyone else) to caress Sam, it is the closest to naked he is capable of being with Sam. It touches the very essence of him, everything that makes him Gabriel is spread out for Sam. It is every bit of trust that he hadn't known he could still give. It is millennia of loneliness being eased against the rhythm of Sam's pulse.

 

So he really should have considered it before deciding it would be fun to tease Sam with his wings in public to watch him try (and fail) to hide his shiver of arousal.

 

 

 

46.

 

There’s a shimmer of light. And then the wings burnt onto the floor light up. Or no, everything else is dark. The sun went down an hour ago but now the moon’s disappeared and so have the stars and the streetlights (feeble flickers that they were) and the lights of the car where Dean is waiting. And then the brief burst of light that comes from an alarmed Cas as the wings light up goes out too and the wings are the only things that exist.

 

And the body that had lain framed by the wings for a year and a half begins to glow. Not all at once, no. Starts somewhere near the heart. Spreads downwards, and once it’s reached the toes it burns brightly enough to illuminate the face and then there’s an explosion.

 

There’s really no other word for it but the word isn’t sufficient. It’s like, for one moment, the world just stopped existing. Sam was in a nothingness so vast that it was like a living creature that swallowed up the whole universe in its hunger. He held on to the now faint glow of the body desperately. As it pulled him, he pulled it. All of this in a brief moment, after which Sam exists in the nothingness and before him, what was nothing but dead flesh wakes up and stretches its wings like its only been briefly asleep.

 

Then they’re in a room that’s cluttered with the paraphernalia of a thousand years and a thousand different worlds and the dust of neglect, and Sam isn’t sure but he thinks this is Gabriel’s mind he’s standing in.

 

Gabriel sits up and says, “I was dead.” His wings settle into a half-way position that doesn’t look very comfortable.

 

Sam nods, “Dean came back, so did Cas. I was brought back with my little brother. It seemed like the trendy thing to do.”

 

Gabriel raises an eyebrow and his wings cock up enquiringly, “I’ve missed a lot, I can tell.”

 

Sam holds out a hand and says, “A lot. Yeah.”

 

Gabriel takes it and asks, with a funny little smile, “You gonna help me catch up?” while his wings stretch out over both their heads and hover.

 

“Not my fault you were sleeping while teacher was taking class,” Sam says.

 

“Still.”

 

“Yeah.” Sam snorts, almost laughing, “I’ll help you catch up.” 

 

Gabriel’s wings settle around them both and lifts them up and Sam thinks it feels like being caught while in freefall.

 

 

 

47.

 

“So you’re like a guardian angel?” Dean says, because he’s Dean and this is how he shows his appreciation to Gabriel Milton for protecting Sam.

 

“Sure I am,” Gabriel says at the same time as Sam says

 

“It’s nothing like that, Dean,” in an exasperated tone.

 

“Only you could go out to get groceries and get mixed up in a kidnapping, it’s that emo-thing you’ve got going on that attracts all the nuts,” Dean tells him. Sam reminds himself that this is just Dean’s way of showing concern and anyway, he can’t kill Dean in front of a FBI agent.

 

He shuts the door behind Dean half-an-hour later with a sigh of relief, not least because he managed to convince Dean that at twenty-nine years old he didn’t need a babysitter for the night. He turns around to see an amused Gabriel waggling his eyebrows at him and corrects himself- _another_ babysitter.

 

“Serial kidnappings, really?” Sam is aware of how plaintive his voice sounds but he can’t quite understand how, in six hours, his life had become something you’d expect to see on the telly every Friday at nine.

 

Gabriel’s eyes soften, he scratches the back of his neck and says, awkwardly, “It’ll be okay. We’re pretty close to the culprit. Don’t worry about it.”

 

//

 

“A vampire? _Really_?” Sam asks, sitting down right on the dirty backstairs of the restaurant. His knees are too weak for him to be picky about sitting spots at the moment.

 

“More like a coven, we think,” Gabriel says, though he’s gone back to being the grim-eyed Agent Milton of earlier this evening. Or last evening, since it’s something like three in the morning now.

 

This is the point where the important bit strikes Sam, “So the X-Files were _right_?”

 

Gabriel looks startled for a moment and then grins, “The best place to hide the truth really is in plain sight. Considering half of the department heads have to be fooled into believing it’s a fake, someone must have figured that ‘plain sight’ means being so humongously obvious a bat out having a sunbath could see it.”

 

 “Yeah? And what do you do with me now that I know, kill me?” Sam’s only half-joking and that half is because of… well, Gabriel. In about twelve hours the guy’s saved his life twice, eaten all the food in his house and made friends with the cat; it’s difficult to believe he’d kill Sam now.

 

Gabriel nudges him over to sit beside him, flush against him because the backstairs of a dingy restaurant wasn’t built for two grown men.

 

“Nah, keep you as a pet maybe, in my underground cellar,” Gabriel says, only it comes out in a soft, rather fond voice and Sam flushes before he can help himself.

 

“An underground cellar, huh. Is it a kinky thing?” Sam jokes, but his tone’s audibly off.

 

“It could be,” Gabriel tells him. His voice still has that undercurrent of amusement but there’s a degree of uncertainty that tells Sam all he needs to know.

 

“How long are they gonna take to arrive?”  Sam asks.

 

Gabriel shrugs, Sam can feel his muscles move and it’s oddly a little arousing, not much thank Christ.

 

“They weren’t far when I called, it won’t be long now.”

 

It’s only fifteen minutes until they call Gabriel to let him know that the vampires ( _vampires_ ) are contained. Someone drops Sam home and Gabriel goes off to the office to write up reports (on vampires, people do paperwork on vampires. Jesus Christ, his _life_.)

 

//

 

“I brought pizza, thought it’d be polite since I ate all your food night before last,” Gabriel shoves in past Sam cheerfully and settles himself down on the couch and teases Mistoffeles who hisses at him and stalks off and generally makes himself as comfortable as if he’s fitted in for years.

 

Sam’s a little startled and a little amused.

 

“So you came back,” Sam remarks and manfully resists making remarks about bad pennies.

 

“I’ve been ordered to keep an eye on you, now that you know what’s “out there”,” Sam can hear the quotation marks around ‘out there’ as Gabriel glances at him with mischief in sun-gold eyes.

 

“Is that why you’re here?” Sam asks.

 

Gabriel doesn’t look at him as he says, “It makes for a good excuse.” He glances up and says, “And I get to spend time with you on the FBI’s time, what’s not to like about that?”

 

Sam laughs and sits down pressed against Gabriel even though his couch is plenty big enough for two.

 

 

 

48.

 

Gabriel knew Dean was the Righteous Man the moment he saw him. Lesser angels might have trouble seeing souls but he was the Messenger of God himself and a Norse god besides.

 

There was no way the blinding white purity of Dean’s soul could escape him. Beautiful is an overused term, Gabriel had seen too much to distribute it unthinkingly. Dean’s soul was beautiful. Unbroken, whole in the way only children’s were usually. It’s breathtaking, even an Archangel can’t look straight into such purity for too long.

 

Sam’s soul is…complicated. The taint might well be just from the demon blood, but at six months old his soul had been porous enough to absorb the taint and become one with it. What was meant to be white (with the gray tinge of most humans) was a spotty, grimy yellow with the cracks spilling their red over to stain it. Fine, web-like cracks, only they penetrate right through to the centre. Some parts have already broken away. One of them, Gabriel suspects, broke the night Jessica Moore died. Another, he knows, broke when his father told him to leave and meant it. It hurt to look at as the soul pulsed out its pain. 

 

It is Sam’s very brokenness that attracts Gabriel and makes even the cowardly part of him that never wants to stop running want to _stay_.

 

 

 

49.

 

He shrugs off the don’t-notice-me glamour he’s been using in case he ends up in the wrong place. Dingy walls, dingy floor, the smell of cheap beer and cheap whisky, yup, it’s your floor chum. Get off and have the time of your life.

 

“You’re back,” Sam remarks, entirely unnecessarily, Gabriel thinks. He makes a flourishing gesture with his right hand that ends with him pointing towards himself.

 

“I didn’t think you’d come back,” Sam says, in the tone of a confession.

 

“I said three days. I’ll give you three days to convince me,” Gabriel tells him.

 

 

Three days turn into four. And then a fifth. And then a week has passed and then another and Gabriel keeps coming. He keeps dropping helpful hints, about the latest hunt Sam and his idiot brother are on. Nothing about the big issue yet.

 

They’ve stopped talking about it after the first week. Sam seemed to accept that he wasn’t going to be convinced and the talk gradually petered into everything else. By that time Sam had already told Gabriel about most of his life in an effort to get him to understand about Dean. He’d said more than he probably realized.

 

Gabriel could see now, a determined, moody young kid looking around him and wanting to get out of the life he had and then growing up to realize that he would have to make his own way out. That the only adult, protective figure he’d ever known wasn’t going to help him with this one.

 

It makes him…curious. That kid, and this man, the strong similarities. That odd, rather disarmingly innocent belief that he only needed to work hard to accomplish the impossible.

 

In a way it explains why Sam would come to a Trickster, who had bluntly said he had planned on breaking him to make him let go of his brother, and try and convince him to help them.

 

In a way it explains why that Trickster might want to.

 

 

 

50.

 

Sam couldn’t even spare a glance for Castiel, who had been thrown clear across the room. He set Dean down and grabbed the stick and dived under Dick Roman’s guard to stab him in his open, laughing mouth and the wild fear that darkened Roman’s eyes gave him a vicious feeling of satisfaction. He turned around to get back to Dean, his fall had been cushioned by Sam but he was almost certain he had heard the ‘snap’ of a broken bone.

 

Sam tried to scream when his body got stuck in place, but couldn’t, and then suddenly he found himself in some sort of nightmare forest. For a moment he wondered whether he’s gone mad, whether Cas hadn’t managed to take away the Hell in his mind completely. Then, in a moment’s insight, he realized that dead monsters all go to the same place. And, apparently, he’d ended up there with Dick.

 

The days passed, Sam presumed. There was no sun, no day and no night. Life here was caught in some sort of perpetual twilight. Sometimes he thought that the worst part was that there was no dawn, and thus never any true hope. His gun had run out of bullets the first hour and his knife had become blunt after three more, according to his watch. Not that that meant much. Sam had caught it moving backwards out of the corner of his eye, though it never happened while he was looking straight at it.

 

Sam couldn’t even be sure how long he had gone without sleep by now. Too long. The constant shooting pains in his head were almost background to the dry ache of his eyes.

 

“What?” Sam said sharply, eyes snapping open as the pain receded. And then, amazedly, “Gabriel?”

 

“Long time no see, Sammy boy,” Gabriel said, but after the mischievous smile’s gone, Sam could see how drained he looked. His eyes were darting everywhere, and there were strained lines on his face.

 

Gabriel sat down beside him and said, “I’ve been trying to get to you. I felt you when you came in.”

 

“I…Lucifer killed you,” Sam blinked, “How are you still alive?”

 

Gabriel shrugged and said in a bitterly mocking tone, “Dad said that there’s nothing after we die. That we’re just gone and that’s it, and we believed him. But dear old Dad’s been known to lie once in a while.”

 

Sam knew how that felt, “You’ve been here all this time? More than two years!” he asks, a little horrified. It can’t have been quite as bad for Gabriel as it was for him but even an archangel had to have felt the strain of living in some sort of real life World of Warcraft.

 

Gabriel looked at him oddly, as if he hadn’t realized that Sam would care, that anybody would. His voice was very gentle, for him, when he said, “It’s the loneliness that got me mostly. I’m dead, but I’m still higher on the food chain than these creatures. I just kept away from the big mouths.”

 

Sam’s quiet for a bit because there’s really nothing to say to that. It’s true, if he had Dean here then this wouldn’t be so bad. Then he said, “We’ll get out. Both of us. We’ll leave this place behind. Or…Dean got me out of the Cage, he’ll get me out of this. And then I’ll get you out.”

 

Gabriel glanced at him and said, “You know, you boys keep doing the impossible. I think I might believe you.”

 

When Sam felt himself falling asleep, he pinched himself awake and Gabriel caught at his hand and told him, “I’ll keep watch, you can sleep.”

 

Sam started to object and Gabriel rolled his eyes and said, “Hel- _lo_ , Archangel. I don’t need sleep. Watching you snore will be the best entertainment this place has offered in however long I’ve been here.”  

 

So Sam settled down, and eventually, he could turn off the part of himself that told him to be wary, there was danger. He felt himself sliding into sleep sitting up.

 

After he did Gabriel gently moved him so that he was lying down. He hesitated, but then slowly lifted Sam’s head and put it in his own lap. Sam murmured something without waking and then fell more deeply asleep.

 

 

 

 

51.

 

It was Gabriel’s choice of movie today. Dean had taken a separate room, he usually did the few nights Gabriel didn’t grab Sam and take him off to Naples to try genuine gelato or Kolkata to have phuchka or to Zimbabwe to have Boerewors with sadza.

 

They’re sitting on the couch that Gabriel snapped up, Sam with his feet on Gabriel’s lap, because they got cold really quickly and Gabriel worried. They’re watching, ‘Three Blind Saints’ and Sam still isn’t sure whether Gabriel really did the acting (although he can’t imagine him having the patience for it) or whether he’s just substituted the actor for himself in the download that’s on Sam’s laptop. Sam’s also not sure why they’re watching this movie- because it isn’t like either of them have any faith in a benevolent God or a benevolent Fate.

 

Still, it’s nice stealing popcorn out of Gabriel’s bowl when he’s busy crowing at the scene about how awesome he was in the scene, or the other one, or ooh look, he’s gonna get the girl (it might be that last point which makes Sam want to steal Gabriel’s popcorn, Sam’s not telling.)

 

Sam idly considers letting his foot rub across Gabriel’s cock. He’s really too comfortable to make the effort that getting up and teasing Gabriel properly would take.

 

It doesn’t matter, they’ll eventually end up having sex anyway, so Sam decides not to. He steals some more of Gabriel’s popcorn, this time by taking it out of the hand he had been triumphantly flinging about. Apparently he had got the girl, or his alter-ego had, or something. Whatever.

 

These nights, they aren’t the frantic rush of getting the most amount of excitement, the most amount of traveling or the weirdest experiences into the shortest time the way they were when playing tourists. Not that Sam doesn’t love that. Seeing everything he’s ever wanted to (he’ll never tell Dean, but art history wasn’t only for picking up girls.) But this. Sitting here, watching Gabriel watch a movie and having popcorn and worrying about nothing at all. This is a bit like being home.

 

 

52.

**TW for BDSM**

 

Gabriel hadn’t imagined doing this. Ever. To anyone, but especially not to Sam. He had never thought about doing any of this with anyone else, he simply hadn’t trusted anyone else enough. And he hadn’t thought Sam would want this.

 

But Sam’s here, he’s kneeling here in front of Gabriel, and there’s a thin leather band, a _collar_ , in his hands and he’s offering it up to Gabriel. Sam’s head is bowed, he’s very good with the formal stuff, is Sam, but right now Gabriel needs to see his eyes. Sam has to be sure about this. Sam _has_ to be sure about this because after this Gabriel’s not going to let go. There’s not going to be any beautiful, brave, big-hearted woman in Sam’s future if…if they do this.

 

So Gabriel’s more serious than he’s ever been when they played, doesn’t talk about a French Maid outfit, or about lime-flavored condoms. He cups Sam’s head and lifts it up with one hand and Sam isn’t smiling wickedly, or shyly and his eyes aren’t lost in a haze of lust or need. This is the other expression, the determined one that Sam had had when he told Gabriel not to mock him, that he wanted this (and a list of things, pain, but not too much. Verbal humiliation but please not too much. Control, however far Gabriel could bear to) and it was okay if Gabriel didn’t want to, Je…other people hadn’t either.

 

Gabriel’s hands don’t shake as he takes the collar, he won’t allow them to at this crucial point. They can shake all they want later. He gently buckles it around Sam’s lovely offered neck and puts Grace on the buckle, to lock it shut but only until the second Sam wants it open.

 

Then he steps back and says, “Come on pet, crawl for me.”

 

 

 

53.

 

Gabriel was down to his socks now, and he waggled them at Sam. They were flipping between various scenes from the Simpsons. The socks could be, Sam presumed, a metaphor for his life. They stank and even the Simpsons were an improvement. Although the décor was vastly improved now that Gabriel was a regular visitor, he had said their usual motel rooms looked like rats’ leftovers and promptly snapped it to his taste. Sam would have felt offended but it was true.

 

“C’mon Sammy, deal ‘em out.” Gabriel said, making grabby motions with his hands. 

 

Sam debated on whether he should follow his ill-thought out plan to the end but Gabriel was sprawled out opposite him and they were on a soft bed and there really was no way Gabriel was going to choose to answer questions rather than strip off his socks and possibly start masturbating in front of Sam. Or even on Sam.

 

Sam dropped the cards and they vanished almost as soon as they left his hands. He grabbed Gabriel by the foot and pulled him in to kiss him, Gabriel’s genuinely amused laughter ringing in his ear.

 

There was time, the rest of Gabriel’s existence, to find out the things that make Gabriel pretend that he hasn’t got a heart. It was worth postponing the quest to be able to even briefly warm that well-guarded heart. 

 

 

54.

 

Blood drips from Sam’s mouth down his chin. There were dried stains on his shirt to show that this had been going on for some time. He grins mirthlessly at Gabriel. “Come to save the world?”

 

Gabriel steps forward in the gloom of the abandoned house and does not look at where a demon is sitting, her head rolled back and her eyes closed. He sends a quick blessing to the poor girl who had died long ago as her meatsuit and keeps looking steadily at Sam.

 

“Come to save me, then?” Sam asks, sounding more genuinely amused. “Can’t be done. My brother tried. Look at where he is now. He should have let me stay dead.”

 

Gabriel stays where he is because moving too quickly isn’t a good idea with a possibly homicidal Winchester in the room.

 

‘Thought I’d check up on you. All the news goes that you’ve given up on getting your brother out. With my exceptional knowedge of you, I figured that meant you were dead,” Gabriel makes lazy circles with his left hand but slower than he usually would. When pulls out a chocolate something-or-the-other to eat, he makes it fade into view rather than just appearing.

 

Sam snorts and sits back on the arm of one of the broken down chairs, Gabriel stiffens as he realizes that the chair’s being held together by Sam’s power. It takes him a moment more to realize that the entire house is being held together by Sam’s power and he flinches back.

 

Immediately he feels Sam’s power, a power corrupted by the feel of Hell, ring around him. It’s strong enough to hold a demigod but Gabriel needs to be out of that hold more than he needs to hold on to his disguise. He breaks away and his wings come out to envelop him, the dancing flames hissing out his fear and anger.

 

“What the hell?” Sam says shoving away the chair and moving his fists in front of him in a defensive stance. Gabriel’s throat clogs up in despair when Sam’s hazel eyes shutter into a deep red. He wants to weep at the waste of it all. At the waste of a good man.

 

He’s heard humans saying their skin crawled when they looked at something. His very Grace crawled looking at the travesty that had been made of Sam Winchester.

 

“I’m the archangel Gabriel,” Gabriel says, and it’s never been said so quietly. The angelic choir and the warm light of Heaven that was so much a part of him as to follow him down to Earth is gone now. What was it worth, when it could not save a good man?

 

“Sure you are. That’s why you let my brother go to Hell even when he didn’t deserve it!” Sam shouts at him and there’s a crack in the filth around his soul when it calls out in grief.

 

Gabriel’s wings flare out and the gold dances, frisking around and coyly extending toward Sam before jerking back in pain. His Grace is singing now, a song of hope.

 

He says, “I couldn’t have saved him. I’m sorry. I can’t save the world either.” His fragile human voice breaks and he can’t say the rest.

 

He holds out his hand and his Grace curls out alongside, to offer Sam something like salvation.

 

 

55.

 

The one thing that Sam knows for sure, as he runs alongside Gabriel- to a clear, deep cool lake, or away from the men with pitchforks or just running; is that Gabriel can (and will, and must) keep doing this forever but he, himself, will age into weakness and someday be left behind. 

 

56.

 

It was dark outside. It had been for a few hours now, even though it was a full moon night, ever since Sam had sent Dean off and Gabriel had grabbed him and brought him here and told him that the outside world could just go fuck itself for a bit.

 

“I’m going to Hell, aren’t I?” Sam asked, quietly.

 

Gabriel tightened his grip and said nothing.

 

Then Sam woke up with his blood in his mouth and the screams of the damned in his ears and remembered; he was already in Hell.

 

 

//

 

Gabriel looked down upon the human flesh that had served him so well and wondered, for the tiniest bit of a second, if he would be back to inhabit it.

 

“This is my (our) obligation (payment) done,” say the Elder Gods and silver armor forms around him, painted with a serpent and a vulture and an owl to aid him in conquest and a whip formed from the blood of a thousand of the damned come to him. They warn him never to summon them again and he thinks that if this goes well he won’t need to, and if it doesn’t he  _definitely_  won’t need to.

 

Then he, the reality of him, the essence of him that was born along with the Universe to be its caretaker, takes arms and dives into Hell.

 

 

  
57.

 

It was getting kind of ridiculous, Sam thought, as he woke up buried under Gabriel for the fifth time in the last two weeks.

 

At this rate, one-month stand wasn’t going to cut it, Sam thought, giving Gabriel his coffee with sugar and cream and no milk and taking his plate of bacon and pancakes with maple syrup from Gabriel and passing over Gabriel’s strawberry syrup.

 

They’d passed one-night stand by a mile a month ago, when Sam had slept over at Gabriel’s place everyday for a week and they hadn’t even had sex because he was so tired after class and work and that one asshole professor who wouldn’t allow anyone inside if they were a minute late. Sam had a sneaking suspicion that Gabriel had actually fed him and stripped him off for bed once or twice because he was missing large chunks of those days from his memories.

 

It was a little weirdly domestic when Gabriel gave him a packed lunch (like he had last time, and the time before that) and told him cheerfully that he was making Sam’s favorite for dinner.

 

It was very weirdly domestic when Sam automatically called Gabriel (number four on his speed-dial after Dean, and Mom and Jess) when he was making a list of things he’d need to buy at the supermarket after class ended.

 

There was also the slightest hint of coupledom in that when he’d got the invitation to whatever class party was going on this week, he’d been told that of course, Gabriel was invited too, and there would be other seniors around from Gabriel’s department for him to hang out with.

 

And that night, when Sam’s fucked out and nibbling idly at Gabriel’s neck and shoulder, Gabriel told him he’s been invited and they can go if Sam wants, or they could go to that movie Sam wants to watch. The really bad Greek mythology one with the hot, half-naked people that is Sam’s guilty pleasure. Coupledom.

 

Then Dean asks him if he’s coming home during spring break, and when are they going to meet his new guy? And Gabriel yells from the couch that he’ll do it tomorrow, he ain’t scared of no hick. Dean snorts and says to tell him that that was the worst comeback ever and Sam hangs up the phone remembering that Dean’s talked with Gabriel before, over the phone or on skype and so has Mom and even Dad has said, ‘hi’ once or twice before continuing his eternal arguments with Sam.

 

Sam walks towards the couch stunned and a little exhilarated and he wants to just kiss Gabriel breathless and he _does_ because he _can_ , because they’re a _couple_.

 

 

58.

 

The blood drips into Sam’s mouth and he cries out with pain because it burns. It’s burning him up from the inside out. His cheeks are dirty with tear tracks but he’s been all out of tears for two hours now.

 

Gabriel shushes him, and when moisture drips onto his bound arms, Sam knows Gabriel is crying too, unable to help himself. He wishes he could find a way to tell Gabriel that it’s alright, he understands that this is necessary, it’s not Gabriel’s fault. It’s Sam’s own stupid fault for drinking demon blood.

 

“Almost done,” Gabriel lies to him, “Almost.”

 

An hour later, Sam’s mindlessly pulling at the ropes, and if it hadn’t been reinforced by Gabriel’s magic on Dean’s grim suggestion, they would’ve torn. Gabriel’s given up shushing him because Sam doesn’t even hear him. All the blood that Sam needs to have has been given, but it’s doing its work and not prettily.

 

Gabriel just sits there and waits and guards against the urge to run away. This time, he’ll achieve the impossible if he needs to.

 

 

59.

 

Sam’s powers have been out of control ever since Dean had gotten Gabriel and Cas (and Death. Sam wonders when he and Dean became BFFs) to drag him and Adam out of the Cage. There was still no news on how come Gabriel wasn’t dead, but they were so used to seeing Cas come back that they figured it was probably God being inscrutable or something again and shoved it off as being very low on their list of problems.

 

“My dreams are weird,” he tells Gabriel, one day, when they’re both on some beach or the other wearing the sort of touristy colorful things (Gabriel’s idea) that made Sam’s eyes hurt.

 

Gabriel jerks his head in a, ‘go on,’ motion but Sam can tell he’s anxious.

 

Sam shrugs and says, “They’re not about the Cage. Just weird.”

 

Gabriel says, “I’ll check up on them this night.”

 

Sam’s torn, he really wants some privacy, but going by his past experience, weird dreams should be nipped in the bud.

 

So that night, he has the singular experience of trying to get to sleep under Gabriel’s unnatural, unblinking stare. It’s only in that half-state between asleep and awake which feels like dying that it is a comforting weight and Sam doesn’t really remember that, any more than he remembers Dean rocking his cradle.

 

The dream goes much like any of the others have, he’s doing…something or the other. He’s a doctor this time, a herbal doctor and considered mad because of his finicky ways. He insists that people bathe often and boil water before drinking it. He’s standing in an indistinct little room at the end of an indistinct little village and blinking in the gloom of the twilight at the man leaning against the door.

 

Loki laughs and tells him, “I’m the patron of mad people, kiddo. Haven’t you heard?” and he feels himself dimple up and lean in for a kiss.

 

Sam jerks awake as Gabriel tears out of him and they stare at each other in the glow of the dawn and Sam’s heart sinks at Gabriel’s pale, sweaty face.

 

“It’s just a dream,” Sam snaps at him.

 

“It isn’t,” Gabriel tells him flatly, “It happened. I remember. Humans don’t generally remember their past lives because it’ll break their brains. Leave them vegetables. We’ve got a problem.” Gabriel says, and the wild look in his eyes warns Sam not to say anything more.

 

Tbc tomorrow.

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From a prompt on comment-fic by enmuse: Gabriel and Sam met before - in Sam's previous lifetime(s). (Could've been when Gabriel was still full-on archangel or as a trickster. Ficlet could be a snapshot of the time or Gabriel reminiscing or Sam having strange dreams/flashbacks...) 

 

 

60.

 

“I’ve already lost so much so much. Forgotten so much. I can’t. Not if there’s any other way.” Sam spreads his hands and looks earnestly into Gabriel’s eyes.

 

“It’s the safest way,” Gabriel tells him, turning away. “Those memories are taking up brain space humans simply aren’t capable of using. And it’s not like your melon is in the best shape anyway.”

 

Sam flinches back at the reminder but has to ask, “But it isn’t the only way?”

 

“What do you want with it?” Gabriel snarls at him, turning around sharply on his heel, and Sam actually jumps back in surprise. “What in the nine circles of hell will you do with it? Isn’t it enough that you took my…”

 

Gabriel’s eyes are darker; the gold cracked through with other colors, as if his Grace could no longer be contained in the flesh he wore.

 

“Those memories aren’t you,” Gabriel finishes, quietly final, “I’ll take them away, and I’ll make sure you don’t even remember having them. It’ll be best for everyone.”

 

Then he runs away like the matter is closed, like Sam doesn’t get a say in whether or not part of his mind is going to be cleared out and Sam feels furious but worse is the flicker of unbearable loss, like he’s seen this happen before. And then he realizes that he has. When he was a herbal doctor, and before that, when he was a seer in a secret organization and before that even, when he was a simple clergyman.

 

That night, when Gabriel comes back, Sam tells him, “You can’t wipe my memory right now, I’m still awake.”

 

“I wouldn’t do it without your permission,” Gabriel says, and he sounds bitter about it, about being decent. “And you won’t let me, will you? Never know what’s in your best interests, you monkeys.”

 

They stare at each other and Sam blames it on the oddness of remembering Gabriel looking at him like he’s something wonderful, but he blurts out, “You find me. Every time. How do you…?”

 

Gabriel’s gaze skitters away and comes back and he says, as if to himself, “I trusted you, I didn’t even know why and I trusted you to save the world.”

 

His gaze sharpens and he tells Sam pointedly, “But you aren’t him.”

 

“Because I couldn’t save the world?” Sam asks, jerking his chin up and tensing his shoulders, bracing himself for the answer.

 

Gabriel hesitates, surprisingly, then shakes his head and finally sits down. He traces the swirly, worn out pattern on the motel bedspread and then says, tiredly, “Oh, you’re him alright. Five. You’ve had five lifetimes before this and you spent every one of them with me. I’ve lost you seven times because you have to be a hero. And every single fucking time you die you ask to be reborn so you can play the damn hero again. Just look at you, Sam,” Gabriel voice rises until he’s shouting by the end.

 

“I’m sorry,” Sam says, helplessly, clumsily moving to Gabriel to cup his cheeks and kiss away the lines on his forehead. Gabriel lets him, placing a hand over one of Sam’s and it makes Sam want to hold on and not let go.

 

“I’m done being a hero,” Sam says, and means it for a brief moment until he remembers Dean, and then the people they’ve saved together and all the people who _will_ die, if he sits back.

 

Gabriel sighs, and says, “No, you’re not.”

 

They sit like that, Gabriel tightly held in Sam’s arms, Gabriel moving his right hand to gently play with the hair on the back of Sam’s neck.

 

Then Gabriel mumbles something Sam can’t quite hear and Gabriel moves back grumbling at the loss of warmth and says, “I can fill your mind with a little of my Grace. As protection. You’ll be able to keep the memories then. Not all.” Gabriel shrugs, “You’ll have to let go of some of them. But some you can keep.”

 

Sam looks down at Gabriel looking at him like he could be something wonderful and knows for sure which ones he’ll want to keep.

 

 

61.

 

Gabriel doesn’t know whether it’s creepier falling in love with someone when he’s pretending to kill their brother over and over and over again, and just looking at them becoming raw makes him want to hold them tight and let their sharp, broken edges cut into his skin; or if it’s creepier falling for them when he’s holding their ripped soul, broken by his brothers, and breathing his Grace into it and willing Sa…them to come back to him and even after a hundred and eighty years of hell their soul is so strong as to struggle on. 

 

 

62.

 

“We’ve seen dragons. Dragons got Eve out of Purgatory.” Sam told Gabriel, a little hysterically.

 

“Nope. Those are Eve’s dragons,” Gabriel says. He makes a slow arc with one hand to show Sam the city (village? Empire?) beneath. It doesn’t look carved out of rock and precious stones so much as it looks grown from them. There are small pockets of trees and herbs growing throughout that look contentedly at home. There are people and other people in dragon shape (or maybe dragons and other dragons in people shape) everywhere, “They are the _dragons_.”

 

Sam wonders why the place looks so different from everything he has ever seen. Then he gets it. It’s so peaceful. Not languid from the heat, or with suppressed fear. It’s just…peaceful. Like some golden age where everyone’s happy.

 

Gabriel leans against him and Sam slings an arm around him, “They existed before this universe and before any others. They never interfere in the working of the rest of the world,” there is something equally awed and bitter in his tone.

 

Sam asks, quietly, “Could they have stopped…everything? Everything that happened?”

 

Gabriel nods. He adds, after a moment, “They could rule the universe if they wanted. They don’t want to, so they step back and do nothing.”

 

Sam can see the logic, can even see that it’s probably a good thing but he’s so angry. So angry his fingers bite into Gabriel’s skin. Everything they’ve gone through, everything was preventable and he just doesn’t know how to deal with it. It’s like God abandoning them all over again.

 

Then Gabriel puts a warm, broad palm over Sam’s bigger hand and says, “I’m here.”  

 

 

63.

 

Sam still dreams of Jess.

 

Not often, mostly it’s Lucifer and Michael and fire and brimstone and Adam, poor kid, who hadn’t asked for any of this begging for it to stop. It’s a relief to wake up at those times and see himself home and hear Adam whistling as he goes around the house packing up for college and hear Dean singing loudly and obnoxiously off key.

 

Sometimes he dreams of Stanford, only it’s not his past. This Stanford is one where he and Jess are engaged and Dean helped him choose the ring. Then there are times he dreams of a baby with wispy yellow hair and brilliant green eyes and Jess laughing at him as he boasts about the baby’s dimples. Sometimes he hears Dad’s gruff laugh and his mother’s warm voice telling Dean to come look.

 

Then he wakes up and he remembers that he’s been dreaming but Dean’s downstairs arguing with Cas and Bobby and Adam is somewhere or the other, safe and messaging his girlfriend and Gabriel is right here, telling him gleefully about what prank he’s pulled now and handing him coffee and a kiss and tugging him out of their bed. And Sam never forgets (never forgets to be grateful) he’ll get to introduce them, all of them, his _whole family_ to Jess when they all get to Heaven and it’s okay that Mum and Dad got a headstart. It’s all okay now.  

 

 

 

64.

 

Gabriel doesn’t know how he got here.

 

He ran away, okay? Luc and Michael were fighting all the bloody time about Dad and Dad’s orders and how they were a hunting family with a _tradition._ And Gabriel packed up and got out. He went to college and had fun for the first time in his entire goddamned life of, “Crossbow, Gabriel,” and “The salt! Gabriel!” and “No, that is not how you kill a vampire, you’re just going to get yourself turned and then what, huh, Gabriel?” and Gabriel hadn’t said, “You’ll kill me,” because it didn’t need saying.

 

And now he’s here, in the back of the Impala he’d spent his four years at college slaving for. And he’s making out with an archangel. A rogue one who’s working with a demon and yours truly to help stop the Apocalypse Gabriel’s thick headed brothers started because they were too busy fighting. Story of their life.

 

“I’ll save you, and your brother,” he tells Sam. Murmurs it into the skin Sam made for himself, so he wouldn’t have to take Lucifer’s.

 

“We’ll get him out of his prison and back home Sammy,” he promises, kissing Sam deep and slow, unable to believe that he’s the first, and the only being Sam’s ever done this with.

 

Sam lets out a low groan and says, in a voice full of distaste “I’m a few millennia older than you humans. Don’t give me ‘nicknames’.”

 

Then they aren’t talking much anymore, Gabriel’s running his hand all over Sam. He runs a hand through the floppy brown, ridiculous hair and Sam groans with pleasure and urges him on. So he uses both hands and strokes him like he would a cat. Sam rubs against him just like one and Gabriel can feel the leather of the seats against his back and it’s wonderfully warm from their body heat.

 

Sam arches up when Gabriel hits the sensitive dip of his neck and Gabriel pulls him down before he can hit his head on the ceiling of the car. Sam loses his balance and his foot hits the door with a worryingly loud thud. Gabriel winces, he loves his baby but man, she sure wasn’t built for someone the size of Sam.

 

“I’ve fixed it. Her,” Sam corrects himself before Gabriel can bristle up into a lecture on respect.

 

He leans down to kiss Gabriel again and Gabriel throws his legs around Sam’s waist and arches into him. Sam scrunches up his forehead, the way he always does when trying to use his Grace in this human prison and their clothes disappear.

 

Gabriel doesn’t take more than a second to decide that the elaborate fucking can wait, and then he pulls Sam down to shift places with him and kneels between Sam’s spread out legs and then curls a hand around Sam’s cock. Sam lets out a low, surprised moan.

 

It doesn’t take much, Sam curls a hand and his Grace around Gabriel’s cock because that’s how Sam is. He can’t quite believe that the flesh is enough to feel.

 

Sam comes silently, biting his lip, and his Grace swirls around Gabriel and drags him closer and Gabriel comes with a shout and collapses on top of Sam whose invisible wings settle around him with a soft rustle and a pained grunt from Sam when one of them presumably knocks against something in the confined space.

 

“Don’t you ever do that again,” he mutters into Sam’s shoulder, “Don’t you ever fucking dare try to go into Hell to save your brother. Archangel or not, you’ll _die.”_

Gabriel doesn’t even care that he’s almost crying, Sam would have died.

 

Sam tightens his grip and his wings around Gabriel, and speaks after a moment, “If there’s no other way to bring him back then I’ll have to.”

 

Gabriel wants to punch him in the face and make him bleed but he’d probably just look a little surprised and heal himself up again and anyway, Gabriel hadn’t expected a different answer.

 

“We’ll get him out,” he says again instead and kisses the line of Sam’s throat and he can feel Sam relax under him and can hear his smile (the wide one with the dimples) in the way he whispers that he believes Gabriel.

  

 

65.

 

“It hurts,” she says, but doesn’t let the pain show. Or her fear at the amount of blood spilling out from the edges of the arrow embedded into her shoulder onto her dark skin.

 

Sam could live but then everyone else here would die. She tells him to save them instead, please.

 

Golden-eyed Loki curses and pleads and finally stands before her and swears to find her again. 

 

***

 

“There really are witches then?” he had asked, heartsick because he had believed those people deserved to live. He couldn’t bring himself to believe that they didn’t, that God would allow something so terrible.

 

He had been so grateful when Loki had told him that witches were people as much as anyone else was. That some were good and some bad. He had sternly refused to believe that God had left his children to suffer (and hadn’t Sam found Loki to help him help people? Wasn’t that a sign that God cared?) but he had believed everything else Loki told him.

 

And Loki curses him for it when he is burning on the pyre at the end of his short life of preventing his fellow church men from burning witches, fake or real. He swears he’ll find Sam again, and Sam’s last thought is regret that he had made his beloved Loki cry.

 

***

 

“I have to try,” he insists, “I have to try and save them. People are dying like…like flies. A dozen deaths a day, and you tell me to run?”

 

Loki cocks his head and that sun bright gaze burns into Sam, “You’ll die,” he says flatly. “You won’t save a single person, and you will die from the illness yourself.”

 

“You can’t know that,” Sam tells him and then when Loki raises his eyebrows knowingly, “Even if it is true, I still have to try. I’m not a coward. I won’t say I’m not afraid of dying,” he admits in his disarmingly frank way, “But there are worse things, and running away would be one of them.”

 

He dies and his last words are to tell Loki that he loves him and Loki’s last words to him are that he will find Sam again. Then Loki buries his head in his hand and sobs and cries out in his pain.

 

***

“Please, my head,” he gasps, groping out with his hand for opium and accidentally brings the entire flimsy shelf crashing down.

 

“Hush,” Loki tells him, and gently runs his fingers over Sam’s brow and takes the pain away.

 

Sam lets it stay for a moment because it is so nice, so very nice to feel a gentle hand after all these years and then he moves away. To protect Loki, because otherwise he’ll die. Just as his mother had died birthing him, his father and brother had died protecting him and his brave lovely wife had died when every doctor they had spoken to had said she would live.

 

In the end, it is Sam who dies; screaming from the pain of having continuous visions for a week. He will not stop them because the war will be lost if he does and the entire world will be plunged into darkness. Loki sits vigil and takes away as much of the pain as he can and feeds him and cleans him and not a single tear escapes him when he brushes Sam’s brow and feels no spark of life. He swears to find him again.

 

***

 

“Down there,” Sam grimly tells him, nodding towards the tiny abandoned-looking village at the bottom of the canyon. Her hair is uncharacteristically tied back in a ponytail, and it’s obvious she doesn’t like it from the way she reaches up to run a hand through her locks and then stops and frowns.

 

“You can’t take them all on alone,” Loki tells her. “You’ll die!”

 

“You need to get those people _out_ , Loki,” Sam tells him. “I can’t wait for everyone else because these people will die and once they’ve been turned we will have no way of stopping them from taking over the world!”

 

She steps back and jerks her head up proudly, “If that means I die, well, I’m not eager for it. But, man, listen to me- I have to do this.”

 

She’s prepared, she even has a damn suicide pill and Loki takes it away and makes her swear to call him. He tells her he will kill her himself before letting them turn her. Her eyes show their gratitude, and she starts speaking but stops herself and the next time she tries to talk, Loki stops her. He doesn’t want to hear it.

 

He snaps her neck before they start feeding on her, just before the saliva that’ll turn her into one of their mindless pets touches her.

 

He doesn’t say anything as he takes her away and gives her a Hunter’s burial because she has no one else, no family, left to do it. He gently brushes out her hair, puts her in her favorite jacket and boots and sees her burn and is mum.

 

***

 

Gabriel tells him, “You’re going to die if you keep on doing this.”

 

Sam thinks about Dean’s weak right leg, his own weakening vision and the fact that they’re _old_ , dammit. Dean’s forty and that’s ancient for a Hunter. They really shouldn’t tempt Fate. They get a house with a yard big enough to hold all the parts for the classic cars that Dean drags home and renovates with enough care that they really seem to come alive under his rough, gun-callused hands.

 

When he dies, Gabriel sitting at his bedside and gently running his hand through his gray hair, it’s only a few days after Cas has come to take away Dean’s soul. He just… there wasn’t much left down here for him and at over seventy, he really is old in a way he had never hoped to be.

 

Gabriel holds out a hand and whistles at the muscles on twenty-five year old Sam’s body and Sam laughs and teases him about being a horn dog as they walk hand-in-hand into Heaven.

 

 

66.

 

Sam’s seen Gabriel’s true form. He never told anyone, not even Gabriel himself. It was that last day, when they had trapped Gabriel in the ring of holy fire. Sam doesn’t know how Dean couldn’t see the Trickster covering dissolving slowly and the ball of righteous fury bursting out (it was a ball only in the same way that the Sun was a ball,) the Chrysler Building couldn’t have held a tenth of him and Sam hadn’t told Dean but Gabriel could have broken out.

 

Right then, he could have broken out and punished them for their insolence in trapping him. Forced them to say, ‘Yes’ to their respective destinies. Or just killed them. Sam doesn’t know why he didn’t.

 

Sam doesn’t know why he wasn’t afraid. Why he never was afraid of the Trickster after that time he took pity on Sam and gave Dean back. Why he wanted to ask the Trickster to help them. He had been so sure that all he needed to do was find the right words and the Trickster would listen.

 

He had caught the Trickster’s eyes when he was turning into the Archangel Gabriel and seen the rage and the pain there and flinched back as he looked into Sam’s very soul and he doesn’t know why the Archangel stayed human (Sam hadn’t known Archangels could be so human and so desperate).

 

 

 

67.

 

Everything’s hilarious. No, seriously, _everything_. After half a bottle of that barman’s choice, a knife in the gut would be hilarious.

 

Even the fact that Gabriel had been in that folder of his on his laptop. That had his notes. The notes he had written to Dad and Dean after he left (was thrown out). The notes he wrote to Jess when she went home for the holidays and he was stuck on campus trying to make enough cash to pay for textbooks. The notes he wrote to Jess after she died, telling her to find Mum.

 

The notes he’s been writing to Gabriel ever since he started falling for the fucking asshole.

 

No one ever reads it. He had the folder named as something boring and pretentious. (He had named it ‘Romanticism’ when he was living with Jess because Jess hated the Romantics)

 

Now, fucking Gabriel had to go fucking ruin everything. Sam fell asleep and snored his troubles away temporarily.

 

“What about my ass, Winchester? It’s a fine ass,” Gabriel says, gesturing at it, “Even if I do say so myself. I made it after all.”

 

“I think it needs beating,” Sam growls, hunching over his laptop, away from Gabriel’s gaze.

 

It didn’t help. The intent look still made him flush. “ _Kin_ ky,” Gabriel says, approvingly and disappears leaving behind a cascade of sweet things.

 

The next time, it’s, “Was it my charm or my humble disregard for self, Sam?” Gabriel asks, lying across Sam’s bed with his boots on and peering into the book Sam’s searching for clues to their latest hunt. Sam stifles a sigh. 

 

Gabriel falls asleep like that but mysteriously, the book seems stuck on a particular page. Sam considers it thoughtfully, it certainly fit the signs.

 

Then, Sam rapidly gets irritated. The thing with Gabriel is he just cannot _let go_. The joke’s over, there’s no more hilarity to be found. But catch Gabriel realizing it.

 

So when Gabriel appears and asks, “No ode to my eyes? They’ve gotten odes before now,” Sam’s had it.

 

Sam says, “I swear to God, Gabriel…” and his fists are clenched, and he’s hunched over himself a little, and can’t make himself stop.

 

Gabriel stops and looks sharply at him and then his lips curve up wickedly, “Let’s leave Dad out of this, baby Winchester,” and he crowds Sam against the chair that is now a couch and Sam sits down and Gabriel straddles his lap and cups his face and looks at him and Sam would write a dozen odes to his eyes if he only knew how.

 

And then Sam gets it. He’ll ask Gabriel later, why he can’t ever do anything the _simple_ way. For now, he’s too busy kissing him.

 

 

 

68.

 

In time, things as simple as the rain and wind and the shift of soil created the Grand Canyon.

 

It is possible to break down a mountain into dust. It’s possible to dry up an ocean. It’s possible to harness lightning and use it to light up a lantern, however briefly. It is possible to feel grief on behalf of someone you haven’t known for an hour. It is possible for a good man to kill and be glad.

 

It’s possible, Sam learns, to do nothing except be himself and hold out his hand in empathy, and have an archangel take that hand and kiss the palm of it and look up at him as if he’s precious. As if, at this moment, he is what keeps Gabriel going.

 

He reaches out with both hands and runs his fingers over Gabriel’s face, the planes of his warm cheek; the wrinkled forehead that shows how he worries though he hides it behind a ready tongue and sly smiles; the lid of his eyes, Gabriel briefly closes them so he can but opens them afterward and looks at him infinitely tenderly and Sam closes his eyes and kisses him.

 

 

69.

 

“It’s ridiculous,” Gabriel tells him, angrily.

 

Sam lifts both eyebrows and then drops them and sighs boredly, “You’ve said that.”

 

“It’s true, what do I want with the damned vessel of my brother?” Gabriel asks, throwing up his arms.

 

“Sex?” Sam tells him, anger and hurt showing briefly in his voice before he suppresses it again and then half-shrugs, “What do I want with the coward who tried to get me and my brother to be his brothers’ vessels?”

 

“I died for your little cause,” Gabriel says, jabbing a finger at him.

 

“You died for the world.” Sam tells him, “And so did I.”

 

Gabriel crowds up against Sam and Sam hauls him up and slams him against the wall and when they’ve finished kissing, when Sam’s lips are bleeding from Gabriel’s teeth and Gabriel’s scalp aches from Sam’s tight hold, Sam tells him, “That’s what you’re here for.”

 

Gabriel tells him, “Not much of an incentive,” and would have gone on to say more in that flippant tone if Sam hadn’t shoved a hand down his pants and made him moan instead. Sam knows how Gabriel likes it, fast. He bites at what skin he can reach from this angle and he’s still tasting the salt on Gabriel’s skin when Gabriel comes gasping out Sam’s name.

 

Gabriel’s legs drop from around Sam’s waist and his head drops back. Sam’s the only thing holding him up now. He’s…Sam doesn’t have words for it. His eyes are half-lidded with pleasure and his mouth is pink and swollen and he looks like he walked out of someone’s wet dream. Sam’s wet dreams. Sam rubs off against him, eyes closed and face in Gabriel’s hair so desperate that he doesn’t even bother unbuttoning his pants and it’s not his imagination that Gabriel brushes a hand along his neck and tells him he’s good, it’s good, come.

 

When he’s gotten off, Sam breathes in Gabriel and the sense of electricity or lightning that he always carries around with him until his limbs hurt from the effort and he lets Gabriel slide down. They pull away from each other and Sam looks at the way Gabriel looks at him, puzzled almost, as if he really can’t imagine why he’s here and retreats to the opposite edge of the room.

 

They stare at each other and Gabriel snaps himself clean and leaves and the snap seems to echo in the room, or maybe just in Sam’s head. Sam sits down and buries his face in his hands and wonders how the fuck he got into this.

 

Gabriel keeps coming back. Sam keeps letting him. Because. Well, because Gabriel’s eyes go from green-gold to almost pure gold when Sam’s fucking him. Because sometimes Gabriel is the Trickster again, only kinder, with smiles so warm that Sam wants to stretch out and relax in them like a cat in sunshine. Because Sam’s no good at not getting attached, he never has been.

 

Occasionally Gabriel will look up at him as if he’s astonished to see him, and Sam asks him who he was expecting instead and Gabriel runs away after making some quip that would be hilarious if it didn’t tear Sam to pieces.

 

But Gabriel still keeps coming back and Sam doesn’t get it.

 

There are nights which are…nice. Where the sex is gentle, as if it means something. It doesn’t. That isn’t what this is about, there’s no comfort to be found in this. Except sometimes Sam does, the feeling of touching, of being able to touch after being stuck so long as a minute part of the vast mind of Lucifer was indescribably good. Reaching out and finding something to touch was a comfort.

 

“I dragged you out,” Gabriel tells him, one night. Sam’s debating how bad of an idea it would be to touch Gabriel to feed his need to feel grounded, instead of feeling like he’s going to go floating away somewhere else any moment.

 

Sam blinks up at him, not quite able to ignore the flash of metallic colored tentacles that he thinks he sees behind Gabriel, he’s almost certain this isn’t Hell but.

 

“I dragged you out of the cage Winchester,” Gabriel repeats, loudly and grabs Sam’s hand which, he notices with surprise, he had been using to try to grab the tentacles. “You’re out now. Castiel might have been a novice at the tricky stuff and had trouble with Adam, not me. _I_ got you out, all of you, at the first go.”

 

Sam wonders why he didn’t say so before. It seems like exactly the sort of thing that Gabriel would love holding over his head, how Sam’s incompetence had led Gabriel into a dangerous situation.

 

“You saved the world. And yeah, it was you and your brother who created the mess but my brothers were in that business too.” Gabriel says, looking away from him, Sam wonders whether he’s aware that Sam’s hand is still resting within his. The soft skin of his thumb brushes over Sam’s callused palm. It’s nice, Sam decides.

 

There are some long nights after that, where Gabriel brings beer and music (not a music player, just the music, coming out of nowhere or occasionally out of the beer because it’s Gabriel) and they just sit there. Talk sometimes, have sex sometimes. Gabriel still gives him strange looks and Sam thinks, he’s almost sure, that Gabriel is glad to be with him. Or maybe he’s fooling himself. It’s been known to happen.

 

“It is ridiculous,” Sam says one night. He’s lying back with his head pillowed on his arm on the grassy ground of some place or the other Gabriel really likes and he gestures with his can between the two of them. He hasn’t actually had any beer yet, he’s not in the mood.

 

“Yeah, preaching to the choir here, kiddo,” Gabriel says from where he’s propped up on one elbow because he was pointing out planets he’s been to. Sam had said he was full of shit and his eyes had gleamed gold as he had drawled out that there was a grain of truth in every tale, Sammy boy, and refused to confirm what part was true when Sam tried to guess.

 

Sam panics and tries to struggle up and away from Gabriel when his words penetrate but Gabriel reaches over and grabs him and just. Looks at him with his eyes lit up and warm. In that same odd, astonished way, as if he can’t quite believe that Sam is sitting there _with him_.

 

 

70.

 

There are some words that shouldn’t be said. ‘Relationship,’ or ‘love,’ or, ‘need’ and with the Winchesters, it’s best to put ‘death’ on the list too, shouldn’t tempt fate any more than usual.

 

The problem is that Sam doesn’t know how to read people anymore. He can fake it well enough. But he’s been so wrong, so very, horribly wrong that he doesn’t know how to trust himself to be right. And Gabriel’s got more than a bit of practice at lying with his expressions and gestures along with his words.

 

It’s a bitter pill but the only reason Sam allows himself this is because he has nothing Gabriel could want. He measures out how much he needs Gabriel, and the moment he needs him any more than he needs his second favorite knife- he’d miss it, he’d hate losing it but he’d forget it soon enough- he’s going to tell Gabriel to find a different amusement for his Friday nights.

 

(Sam’s pretty good at lying too.)

 

 

71.

 

There are some things that Gabriel simply isn’t. He isn’t good. He isn’t a hero, or mighty or righteous, even if he might have been once.

 

Once you’ve hung around earth for as many years as Gabriel has, you begin to figure out that this isn’t an advantage. Oh, it’s great fun. Lying and cheating and taking no responsibility for anything. Just flitting around having fun. But the fun ends sometime and then what’ve you got? What are you? Sam won’t even tell Gabriel what he wants- he’s passive-aggressive like that- but Gabriel knows he needs someone to match up to him.

 

The only way Gabriel can keep this going is by not letting Sam think about what they have. Just don’t hang around too much. Don’t get annoyed when he talks about being single. Tell him about everyone else you’ve had and don’t tell him about how many of them took a piece of your heart. And for fuck’s sake, don’t give him another piece.

 

(Gabriel never was any good at following his own advice.)

 

 

 

72.

 

“What would you have done with it?” Sam asks.

 

“The One Ring? Ruled ‘em all of course, Samwise,” Gabriel says, changing Sam’s hairstyle to that of Sam Gamgee’s in the movie with a snap of his fingers.

 

Sam glares at him, “Knock it off, that was only funny the first time.”

 

“The hair? The name?” Gabriel asks.

 

“Both,” Sam tells him firmly, ‘And, no, seriously, what would you have done? Don’t tell me you would’ve ruled anything. Dude, you could rule Heaven if you wanted to right now.”

 

“Heaven’s boring,” Gabriel tells him, pushing Sam down to lie on the bed instead of sitting on it and then sprawling all over Sam.

 

“I’d probably end up being Boromir,” Sam says, and then, after a moment, says in a horrified tone, “Gabriel, man, I’m Boromir.”

 

Gabriel snorts out laughter into Sam’s shirt and offers, “Sean Bean was hot?”

 

Sam kicks him, and he says, “Samwise, It is our choices that show what we truly are far more than...”

 

Gabriel stops because Sam shoves him off and asks, “Are you quoting Harry Potter at me? _That’s_ your idea of comfort? Dude, you are the worse partner ever.”

 

“I swallow,” Gabriel retorts, “Best partner ever.”

 

Sam laughs despite himself.

 

“The movie sucked,” Gabriel says, and Sam recognizes that he’s trying to get Sam away from thinking about his own choices and the disasters that came of them.

 

Sam shrugs, “Movie had its good points.”

 

“I could have made way better special effects,” Gabriel retorts. “In fact,” he adds, with a wicked grin, “I did. But that version had my own additions.”

 

“That’s because you’re an angel and a god,” Sam tells him and pulls him close again, “And the movies were fun.”

 

Then the rest of what Gabriel said struck Sam, “You made a porn video of them, didn’t you?” Sam said, and it’s more resigned than horrified and his dimples peep out through his stern expression.

 

Gabriel shrugs noncommittally and grins up at Sam, “All those wild, raw emotions in such a limited space.”

 

“You’re a creep,” Sam tells him and Gabriel’s grin softens into a smile at the fond tone

 

 

73.

Comes between 15. and 13.

 

Between reaching out to touch and the moment of touching, there is an infinite second. In that one second Gabriel can remember the whole of his existence, everyone he has ever loved.

 

His poor, deluded siblings who still wait endlessly for a Father who has forgotten them or abandoned them; brave, clever Sigyn who had known his truth and protected him and dried his bitter tears; fiery Kali who had showed him yet another new world and had laughed with him in giddy joy at the beauty of it, he had loved her truly and she may even have loved him in her turn.

 

He doesn’t love Sam, not quite. There is resentment here, and admiration, and some fascination. There is instinctive disgust, because Sam is tainted by Hell and had even submitted to the taint and there are times when the stink turns Gabriel’s stomach. There are also other feelings he flinches from acknowledging. There is, as always, the frustrating desire to touch. Love may come if he touches; it’s the one thing that’s held him back.

  

He imagines telling Sam, ‘I think I could love you,’ and there is the freedom of honesty in the words.

 

 

74.

 My idea for how S8 should open.

 

“Did you sell your soul for your skills?”

 

Sam jerked up and swore as he hit his head on the underside of the sink. Gabriel had been lying on the couch with his head over the arm, watching Sam work upside down. He got up now, one foot on the couch and the other on the ground and a hand stretched out towards Sam. Sam shook his head and said, “It’s fine, I’m fine, doesn’t hurt that bad.”

 

Gabriel wavered, his irritation and worry showing on his face and remarked, “Your pain threshold is weirdly high, kiddo, I think you’d be able to walk with a knife in your gut.”

 

Sam looked at him for a moment until Gabriel’s brows drew together and then one quirked up in a questioning manner. Then Sam asked, “Why did you say that?”

 

Gabriel looked taken aback, “Hyperbole, Sam.” Then he added, “You wouldn’t take anesthetic even when your fingers needed setting that time last winter, your pain threshold _is_ weird.”

 

Sam shook his head impatiently, and said, "I don't like things that make my head fuzzy or make me see things," he grimaced as he said, “I meant the other thing, the…sell my, uh. Soul thing.”

 

Gabriel frowned at him, “Sammy, love, are you coming down with something?”

 

Gabriel does come over this time, in their tiny flat it’s barely two steps from the couch to the kitchen sink, and Gabriel sinks down onto his knees to feel Sam’s forehead.

 

“You don’t seem feverish,” Gabriel told him, gently curling his fingers over the back of Sam’s head where he had hit it.

 

After a moment Sam took a hold of that hand and squeezed it, then let it go. Gabriel held on, and settled down on crossed legs beside Sam and put both their hands in his lap.

 

“You’re the only person I know in this whole wide world. Gotta take good care of you,” Gabriel said, laughing.

 

Sam looked down at their hands and asked, quietly, “Is that why you’re here with me?”

 

Gabriel stiffened, Sam could see it from the corner of his eye, then Gabriel relaxed but went unnaturally still, it was an _unearthly_ stillness.

 

“I love you, Sam,” he said, in a soft, serious voice that was rare for him, “I don’t know what happened to me, why I don’t remember anything beyond the last two years, why I don’t seem to have any family looking for me. But I swear to God I know I love you. I think I’ve loved you for years.”

 

Gabriel half laughed and looked up at Sam sheepishly as he said, “Sometimes I think I loved you before I lost my memory. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and I think I remember wanting you before that. I don’t know what your family would think of this but…”

 

Sam drew him closer and tucked Gabriel’s face under his chin and said, “I’ve told you, I have no family. You’re it. My mother and father died a long time ago, and I think my brother’s dead too. I can’t find him. I’ve searched everywhere,” he hugged Gabriel a little tighter and said in a softer, sadder tone, “I’ve checked out every lead I had and some that seemed plain impossible. He’s gone.”

 

Gabriel shifted his head so his mouth was free, and his voice was sincere when he said, “But you found me instead, by some weird luck. And I’m going to take care of you for him. When we find him, I’m going to give him back his brother and he’s going to thank me for making sure you’re still whole.”

 

Gabriel struggled back from Sam’s hold and grinned confidently up at him. Sam gently pulled him back into a tighter grip and kissed the top of his head and said nothing.

 

 

75.

 

Most of the time, Sam could and did forget it. Then occasionally, Gabriel would do some casual thing that reminded him- Gabriel was an archangel.

 

This would happen,

 

“You just came,” Sam laughed and shoved him away teasingly.

 

“Yeah, but I’m an archangel kiddo,” Gabriel said and leaned down to kiss him. Sam froze up then when Gabriel quirked an eyebrow at him, he leaned up and kissed him and shoved the thought to the side.

 

Or this,

 

“I think my ass is melting,” Sam remarked, staring up at the ugly-ass ceiling.

 

A moment later, he was on soft sheets and the room was the absolutely right temperature, not cold but cool and the air curled over him in waves and made him moan involuntarily with pleasure. He rolled his head to the side to blink at Gabriel in surprise.

 

“Hel _lo_ , archangel,” Gabriel told him, grinning. Sam tried to smile at him.

 

Or even this,

 

“Two Sams. I could work with that.” Gabriel mused aloud, looking Sam over.

 

“I…no.” Sam said, “Gabriel, no. Just… please. No.”

 

Gabriel frowned, “Come on! It’ll be fun.”

Gabriel opened his mouth to argue further but Sam just shook his head and he gave it up.

 

Sam didn’t intend to ever tell Gabriel. He doubted Gabriel would be around long enough to tell. Even if he did stick around though, Sam had calculated, the life of a human was somewhere around the twenty-fifth part out of a million (or maybe ten million, the words seemed to be a bit blurry for some reason) and what was that really? Nothing.

 

 

76.

 

Gabriel knows Sam doesn’t understand. Doesn’t believe him when he says he cares about him. He knows Sam thinks of himself as tainted and wrong; thinks, in a purely unself-pitying way, that it would've been best if he hadn't been born.

 

But for the longest time, Gabriel had no clue what to do about it.

 

Then, when it struck him what needed to be done, it took him three months work to do it. But he finished it and he brought Sam there over his protests that he needed to work, and eat and where was Gabriel taking them anyway?

 

It was eight square inches, and each inch had a different painting, Sam's death (Gabriel unabashedly stayed in Sam’s nightmares and pushed them away, mostly with porn); and Hellhounds tearing at Dean; and Gabriel's memory of the beginning of the earth; and the first time Gabriel had walked upon the earth, free of responsibilities and the guilt of killing his own brothers lightened for a few moments. Sixty four memories, terrible and wonderful but all magnificent and all precious.

 

And they made up Sam's face.

 

Sam looked at it silently for the longest time. Then, when Gabriel was really getting worried, he turned to Gabriel and said, softly, "I don't get it."

 

Gabriel heard his tone and understood that it wasn't, 'I don't get what it means' but, 'I don't get how you can love me,' and he grinned ruefully up at Sam and said, teasingly, "Neither do I."

 

Sam rolled his eyes, but a smile curved up his mouth and dimpled his cheeks.   

 

 

77.

 

Sam always let Gabriel talk him into it. Mostly because Gabriel had perfected the art of being annoying without needing to work at it but also because it always turned out really, really good. Gabriel had had thousands of years to practice after all.

 

So when Sam walked into his motel room after a long, frustrating day to see Gabriel sprawled out on the bed with a rope doing tricks in front of him he raised an eyebrow to confirm this was what he thought it was. Gabriel nodded, a flash of surprise showing on his face because Sam hadn’t made a fuss.

 

“You could have just used magic,” Sam grumbled at him, as far as he was able to grumble with one of Gabriel’s hands under his left thigh, his thumb rubbing over Sam’s asshole and the other stroking over the rope tight on Sam’s chest. That is to say, Sam gasped out barely audible words between moaning.

 

“Hm. Yes,” Gabriel said in an absent tone, considering the picture that Sam made with his hands tied up over his chest and his thighs up and spread apart. He put his chin on one of Sam’s knees and looked at him in his unnatural, unblinking way.

 

“Get on with it before I lose my hard-on,” Sam said, and Gabriel stroked his cock and Sam jerked up as far as he could with the ends of the rope being tied off to the bed. Sam swore and then said, “Gabriel, _please_.”

 

“This is going to be fun.” Gabriel told him gleefully. 

 

 

78.

 

Sam lost a week to drinking and screaming and crying. That’s what he assumed had happened anyway, he didn’t actually remember anything except the smell of cheap booze and the overwhelming fear and the nearly physical pain of losing Dean.

 

On the eight day he vomited up blood and looked at it bleakly and thought about getting food. On the ninth day the innkeeper told him he’d only paid up for eight days and kicked him out unceremoniously. Sam took Impala’s reins; he couldn’t bear to ride her yet, and wandered towards the marketplace to find some food. That’s how he saw the posters announcing the Regent’s offer of anything his kingdom could provide to the person who could recover his brothers from their cursed state.

 

Sam looked at it meditatively and recalled Bobby telling him about how this kingdom had magicians in court positions, that the Regent was rumored to be a magician himself. That night he looked up what books he had on hand and decided to travel over. It was only about seven hours away. Sam thought about renting (or stealing) a horse for himself the way they usually did instead of riding Impala, but he gave up that idea.

 

***

 

“Do you know any way of bringing people back from the land of Hell?” Sam asked the council sitting before him.

 

The council had been contemptuously talking over him and asking for the next candidate until that moment when everyone went quiet at once. Sam felt all seven of them scrutinize him heavily. He knew why, very few people knew about Hell, that it was real and not just tales to get children to behave themselves. The few that knew about it didn’t talk about it.

 

“Yes,” the leader said, a dark woman sitting in the middle with three people on either side of her.

 

“Six of our seven princes are swans. Can you cure them, boy?” a man with papery white skin asked, wrinkling his nose as if he had smelt something terrible. “Magicians from three kingdoms have tried and failed.”

 

“I’ll do it,” Sam said, his chin up, determined to succeed.

 

The council was in a furor, all of them coming up from their seats to tell the leader their views. Sam could hear the youngest of them, a beautiful blonde girl with clever eyes drawl out that he was a joke.

 

The leader heard them all and finally clapped once. All of them went quiet to listen to her, she spoke directly to Sam, “If you succeed, you’ll get the secret to go into Hell. If you don’t, you’ll leave this kingdom and not return.”

 

Her voice brooked no opposition. Sam nodded once and left, the terms were fine by him. He’d succeed.

 

***

 

It took him three months to find out how, and it was easy to see why trained magicians from three kingdoms had failed. A demon had set the curse and it would take demonic magic to bring them back. Sam felt sick at the idea of using the taint in his blood but if it helped bring back Dean, he would do it.

 

He went back to the council and told them he’d need to stay with the swans for an indeterminate amount of time and he would need to be accommodated because he wouldn’t be able to speak during that time.

 

This time, there was still an air of contempt in the room but there was a level of uncertainty underneath it. Sam refused to tell them how he was going to remove the curse, he was certain if they found out they’d get someone else to do it and throw him out. Or possibly execute him for have demon blood. The leader told him he would have whatever he liked but he needed to succeed.

 

Thus began the twelve months Sam would need to be silent. At first, it was both difficult and lonely. He needed to pluck their feathers and weave them into cloaks with tendrils of his own magic in them making out the words that would cure them. Weaving was possibly the most boring job Sam could ever have imagined.

 

The swans didn’t like him, most of them tried to peck him when he went to get their feathers except for one reddish-brown one that gave him sympathetic eyes and slept in his room sometimes, when she sensed that he was feeling exceptionally lonely. There was a brown one that didn’t actively hurt him until he tried to pluck him, instead seeming to be rather curious about what he was doing, and there was an off-white one that looked down his beak at Sam. Sam noted that however many feathers he plucked, the birds never seemed to be denuded.

 

The routine of the days wore on his mind and made him restless but there was nothing he could do. Then one fine morning about five months later he heard cheerful whistling and he abandoned his loom to go out and see who was there. Everyone knew he and the swans and Impala were on this field and no one ever came except the servants who brought him the things to make his food, or clean clothes.

 

His first impression was a cheerful laugh and golden eyes blinking at him from some distance away.

 

“Seem to have lost my way,” the man yelled, moving towards him, “Know where a fellow could get some food around here? I’m hungry enough to eat _you_ up, kiddo.”

 

Sam only just stopped himself from laughing out loud, he grinned instead. The man seemed to carry around the air of a carnival. Loud, and brash and fun. He beckoned at him to come inside and the man climbed over the fence enclosing the stone house and the swan’s lake and came to him. Sam took out the food he had made and set it on his small table and noted that he would have to make some more for dinner.

 

The man looked him over with an air of appreciation that made Sam’s cheeks flush under his tan. The man looked at him curiously when he refused to answer any questions that needed him to speak, and asked him once whether he was capable of speech. Sam shook his head at that and the curiosity on the man’s face deepened. He was an entertaining companion, telling Sam tales about the outside world and his own past that Sam was sure were exaggerated. He implied as much with a raised eyebrow which the man responded to by shaking a finger at him and telling him no one liked cynics.

 

Sam smiled so much that his cheeks hurt.

 

“I’m Loki,” the man said, just before leaving. “I’ll be hanging around near here. Probably for longer than I’d planned.” He wagged his eyebrows at Sam to demonstrate why. Sam put a hand on his shoulder to stop him going and rushed back in to find a pencil and paper and scribble, ‘I’m Sam’ on it. He handed it to Loki, hoping that by some wild chance this man who seemed to be of the peasant classes would know how to read.

 

Loki looked at the paper with a slight frown, then a rather sweet smile curved up his lips and he looked up at Sam with bright eyes and said, “Nice meeting you, Sam.”

 

Sam wasn’t sure whether he should count on Loki coming back; he had met smooth talkers before. His brother had been one after all, Sam thought, suppressing the rage and pain that came with the thought.

 

Three days later, Loki came back, around the same time and grinned up at Sam and told him he had only come for the food. Sam fed him and listened to him talk and saw him playing with the swans who seemed to like him, and felt the world become just a little less dark.   

 

Loki came around almost everyday after that and often tried to coax or tease or surprise Sam into talking. Sam tolerated it, only occasionally getting annoyed because Loki didn’t know what was at stake. He only knew that Sam wouldn’t talk or laugh or make any noise really. At times Sam wondered how long Loki would tolerate this state of affairs. Less than two months was the answer.

 

Two months after Loki first came into Sam’s life, some seven months after Sam had begun his attempt to break the curse Loki and he were sitting by the lake, and Loki shooed away the swans coming up to be fed and then pulled Sam down to kiss him. Sam curled his fingers into Loki’s tunic and licked at Loki’s lips with his tongue to get him to open and Loki moaned. Sam jerked back when he could no longer stop himself from saying something.

 

Loki looked at him for a long moment and Sam’s heart sunk at the way his lips were pressed together. He put one hand on Loki’s shoulder but Loki shrugged it off and turned away from him, walking to the fence. Sam stayed where he was, recognizing the forbidding set of Loki’s shoulders. Waves of frustration rolled in him because words were all he had, Dean and Dad- they were good with the big gestures and stuff. All Sam could do was talk. Now he didn’t even have that.

 

After a few moments Loki turned back to Sam and said flatly, “I’m done with these games. Either talk to me now, come away with me. What are you doing here, alone with a bunch of…of swans!” he jerkily gestured at them and one or two of them honked at him uncertainly, seeming to be rather hurt by his dismissal.

 

“Or we’re done,” Loki finished, “I can’t do this.”

 

Sam looked at him and held a pleading hand out. Loki jerked forward almost unconsciously and then visibly held himself stiff. Sam dropped his hand. Lki looked at him with betrayal clear in his eyes.

 

“You’re staying? You’re not gonna quit this? You are going to…” Loki shook his head despairingly and said, “I don’t know why I even bothered. Have your swans then kid, I’m done with this.”

 

Sam ran after him and caught hold of him just beyond the fence because with Loki’s shorter legs he had a considerable disadvantage. But when he had caught up, Loki just looked up at him challengingly, “Well? Convince me to stay! Go on, I dare you.”

 

Sam leaned down to kiss him but Loki moved his head so that it fell on his cheek. Sam held him for long moments but Loki didn’t soften by look or gesture, even his eyes were the hard gold of the summer’s unforgiving heat and slowly Sam’s hands fell away from Loki’s shoulders. Loki turned around and walked away and Sam watched him go, heartsick and weary.

 contd in next part

 

79.

 

Part 2 of The Swan Princes

 

Sam worked steadily on, even when his hands bled from the magic or from the swans pecking him. They seemed to dislike him even more now that Loki had left, even the reddish-brown one stared at him disapprovingly or hissed at him when he went to sit by the lake where he and Loki used to feed them. He ignored it all, keeping his mind on Dean’s screams as the blood-red dogs of the Hell-land fed on him. It fuelled him to work faster and longer even if it did exhaust him. Exhaustion was what he was aiming for in any case.

 

He was almost finished when some of the threads on the very first cloak tore. Sam guessed it was because it was the first one he had made and he had been clumsy with the loom. Sam couldn’t risk doing a shoddy job so he swore mentally and tore it up and broke a chair in his anger then grimly went on to make another one.

 

Finally, at the end of twelve months, he was done. For a moment he stood with six whole cloaks spread around him and blinked down at his hands because he had nothing to do. It seemed impossible that he could leave this hut and this loom behind for always soon.

 

The next morning, he gave the servant who came to give him food a note for the council. To be precise, he left it out on the table and nodded at her to take it because none of the servants who came there would touch him or come within a feet of him if they could help it. He waited for the council to come and grimly wondered if they would hold up their end of the deal or just kill him the moment he had finished breaking the curse.

 

As it turned out, the council seemed none too sure about it themselves. The blonde girl looked him over and said it might not be a bad idea to let him go create havoc everywhere, her tone implying the exact opposite.

 

The leader eyed the cloaks and the demonic magic weaved into them with growing distaste and murmured, “It’s disgusting.”

 

Sam had an idea that the ‘it’ in this case was him. He raised a defiant eyebrow at them and handed her a note saying, ‘We have a bargain, you keep your end- I’ll keep mine.’

 

The leader looked furious for a brief moment then nodded sharply, “Do it then.”

 

Sam turned around, hauled up the cloaks and tossed them on the respective swans until he got to the red-brown one where he hesitated then gently wrapped her cloak around her.

 

The air turned thick as if with smoke, the hut seemed to close in on them and Sam heard a voice croak out, “My feet hurt,” and another snarl out, “He’s turned my back raw with all the feathers he took.”

 

A moment later, it was a clear spring evening again and before them stood two women and four men, dressed only in cloaks. The red headed one looked thoughtfully at Sam.

 

Sam looked back at her, somewhat embarrassed to realize how much comfort he had taken from her over the past year and she suddenly smiled, “Hello, Sam,” she said in a voice rough from disuse and something in the tone struck Sam as so familiar that it made his heart ache.

 

He cleared his throat when he couldn’t get his voice to work the first time, “Hello.”

 

“I’m Anna,” she held out a hand for him to shake. Sam took a firm hold of it and felt the ache dispel (or possibly increase) at the warmth of another human against his skin after so long.

 

“Anael,” the off white one corrected, and he looked at Sam, “I’m Michael, I’m the eldest. Thank you for saving us.” They grasped each other hands in a brief shake but Sam could see the heartfelt gratitude on Michael’s face.

 

The brown one, Sam thought it was the brown swan because he had the same curious stare, held out a hand too as awkwardly as if he wasn’t quite sure it wouldn’t turn into a wing any second. Sam took it and held it and the man half smiled and said, “Sam. Thank you,” in a surprisingly deep voice.

 

The others also introduced themselves and thanked him- Raphael in her deep, sincere voice, her twin, Israfel echoing her and sheepishly adding his apology for the scar on Sam’s left elbow and a soft rumble from Uriel who nevertheless looked wary.

 

Raphael looked at Michael and suggested that Sam come to the castle in a meaningful way that sent Sam’s warning bells ringing.

 

“I need to be going, I need the secret. I’ve spent so long on this already.” Sam said, rounding on the council, shoes squeaking against the stone floor as he strode towards them.     

 

One of the council murmured something in the leader’s ear, and she glanced up and looked at something behind Sam’s back. Sam twisted around but whatever was being said had finished, everyone was looking at him thoughtfully.

 

“It requires morning light in any case, to pass the knowledge on without transporting ourselves into a dangerous situation.” the leader said, slowly, “Spend the night in the castle since their majesties wish you to. Tomorrow we will keep our end of the bargain.”

 

Sam didn’t want to but he didn’t feel up to a fight, so he went with them and hoped they weren’t planning on killing him. Anna smiled reassuringly at him intermittently throughout the evening, over the royal family’s dinner table. Sam could see that everyone was uneasy and watchful. He asked after the Regent, who had not yet appeared to celebrate the return of his siblings and was met with several evasive non-answers.

 

Israfel said, “His sorrows are manifold, he’s drowning them somewhere else,” in a harsh voice. Uriel said something Sam couldn’t hear and Raphael turned to him angrily from her twin’s side.

 

“He would have let us rot!”

 

Michael looked at her sternly and she quietened, all of them fell silent.

 

“He did what he thought was right,” Anna said finally and that seemed to be the end of the matter. Sam’s mind was taken up with his forthcoming quest so he shrugged off the matter as being some sort of family problem.

 

So it didn’t even cross his mind when he was in the room he had been offered in the castle and the thick decorative drapery on one wall moved and someone came through. He just went for the nearest knife and congratulated himself grimly for staying awake thinking he might be attacked.

 

Dimmed golden eyes and mobile lips pulled down at one corner greeted him and for a moment Sam wanted to rush over and just curl around Loki and never let go. Then he took in the rich clothes and the way Loki stood, just a little bit straighter than he had when pretending… _pretending_ to be a wanderer with no aim in life.

 

“Who are you?” Sam said, his voice shaking, “Your name isn’t Loki, is it?”

 

Those lips twisted into something wry and he said, “Gabriel. They call me Gabriel. King Michael’s regent for this kingdom for these past four years.”

 

Sam felt slightly sick as he realized that he had recognized Loki… Gabriel in Anna’s way of speaking; that was why he had liked it so. He said, “I don’t get it. You must have known what I was doing. You must have known I couldn’t speak because I was trying to save your siblings. What were you thinking?”

 

Lok…no, _Gabriel_ looked grim as he said, “Oh, I knew. They told me, the council, after they were done talking to you. I was away when they met you and they didn’t want to wait. They didn’t know who you were, didn’t care even after I told them. I remembered the stories about someone selling their soul- a Winchester. I would have found some other way of getting them back. Giving you that secret is too dangerous. I tried to fix things as soon as I got back.”

 

“So that was you fixing things.” Sam said, quietly.

 

Gabriel looked so very sorry for a moment, as if he were the one who had been betrayed, lied to. As if he were the one who had just had his heart broken a second time.   

 

Gabriel couldn’t meet Sam’s eyes any longer, he looked out the window as he said, “You’re going to try to get your brother back, and you’re going to break the world kid.”

 

“Don’t call me that,” Sam said, surprising himself with the vehemence in his tone.

 

A flash of pain crossed Gabriel’s face again but he said, forcefully, “Listen to me, Sam. You go in there, you will break the world.”

 

Sam wanted to say that he didn’t care. Instead he said, as reasonably as possible, “If your council knows and doesn’t care, maybe it isn’t that big a deal.”

 

“They don’t care,” Gabriel yelled and Sam stiffened at the suddenness of it. “None of them care!”

 

Gabriel made a wide arc with one hand, and said, “They wouldn’t... they would live.”

 

Sam frowned at him then slowly shook his head. “I don’t understand anything. Your council doesn’t listen to you and they don’t care that I’ll break the world?”

 

Gabriel looked down at the floor for a moment, looking as if he were debating with himself, then he looked up and said, “I’ll tell you everything.”

 

He licked his lips and started, in a careless voice that Sam knew was artificial, “The council is allowed a lot of power, you saw. Do you know why?”

  
Sam shook his head again and impatiently said, “Get on with it.”

 

“My brother’s ruled for over three thousand years,” Gabriel said flatly.

 

Sam gaped at him and tried to speak but Gabriel motioned at him to shut his mouth.

 

Gabriel went on, “The council chooses itself and its successors. Every once in a while there is a change and the new council crowns the King. You’re too young to have seen a coronation but it’s always the same. It’s done up on the roof here, high up, and magic makes it a rainy, foggy day. No one ever sees the king so no one knows that it’s always the same man.”

 

Sam opened his mouth to protest again, that someone would have noticed. Some magician would have seen something odd about the entire thing in three thousand years.

 

Gabriel seemed to know what was coming, he said, “Magic keeps everyone complacent and we’re very careful. Why do you think we needed you? You aren’t a magician. There are trained people we could have asked but it was too dangerous, we couldn’t risk the secret like that. The council has us under a sword. They let it out and there would be large scale panic. The people would flee, every kingdom nearby would turn on us.” 

 

Sam sat down heavily on the bed; it was beginning to make some kind of horrible sense.

 

Gabriel fiddled with his sleeve before going on, “I don’t have six siblings, I have seven. One of them was named Lucifer.”

 

Sam’s breath caught, “The ruler of Hell?”

 

“Hell is his prison.” Gabriel said, looking bitter, “Michael and Lucifer fought because Lucifer wanted to clear away the aristocracy- _kill_ them- and Father told Michael to throw him out. So he’s imprisoned there. If you go in, he’ll be able to break out and kill as he likes. He’ll break the world. And no one cares because it’ll mean our family will rule everything, and they want that. I think they _want_ a war.”

 

Gabriel looked at him, pleadingly, but Sam looked back steadily, begging him to understand. He couldn’t leave Dean in there.

 

“You’re going to go aren’t you?” Gabriel asked, it was barely a question, he sounded defeated.

 

“I’m sorry,” Sam offered, spreading his hands in a helpless gesture. He was too, but he needed to do this.

 

Gabriel closed his eyes, his shoulders slumped and his head bowed. He looked the very picture of despair.

 

Sam didn’t know what to say. He tried to think of some way to apologize or get Gabriel to understand.

 

The Gabriel straightened up, rolled his shoulders and said, “Then I’m coming with you.”

 

“Really?” Sam asked, and his joy was embarrassingly evident. He went over to Gabriel and hesitantly touched his cheek.

 

Gabriel still looked unhappy but one corner of his mouth quirked up at Sam’s touch, “I’m not letting you go into Hell alone, kiddo.”   

 

 contd in next part

80.

 

Part 3 of The Swan Princes

 

“Don’t look anywhere else. There will be demons tempting you.” Gabriel told him, eyes anxious, “Follow your amulet blindly, you’re very lucky to have something he’s been wearing so long. I’ll be with you. You’ll probably hear your brother cry out for you or something.”

 

“But it won’t be him, I get it, Gabriel,” Sam said impatiently.

 

“You don’t,” Gabriel said flatly, “It’ll be unbelievably realistic, and you won’t be able to distinguish the difference and if you step away from the path I won’t be able to see to stop you. You have to get this into your head right now or we’ll all be in a mess.”

 

Sam stopped short, “You won’t be able to see?”

 

Gabriel looked uncomfortable as he said, “You have demon blood. That protects you. I can’t go in there without a blindfold. I’d go blind.”

 

Sam didn’t know how he managed to say, “Then you should stay back,” but he did, even with fear gripping at him.

 

Gabriel quirked a smile and said, simply, “No.”

 

Sam opened his mouth to argue and Gabriel waved it off and told him to hurry up with making himself all pretty, it was getting late and they should have been with the Council ten minutes ago. Sam got so heated up in arguing, while running down to the underground chambers, whose fault it was that they were late that he couldn’t pick up the threads of the other argument until they were in the chamber.

 

Sam made one last attempt when the blond girl was dragging away Gabriel to put a blindfold on him. The girl shoved him back with a delicate flick of two fingers. Gabriel glanced back at him, and Sam was the last thing he saw before the blindfold went on.

 

Sam didn’t know precisely what happened. With Gabriel coming along, the process was different and the council had firmly said that they would send both of them with protections, there was no way was Sam allowed to do the magic with Gabriel’s life in the balance. There were several chilly glances that told Sam that no one was pleased with the business.

 

Raphael and Israfel stepped up suddenly. Israfel said, “Anael thinks it would be wise if…” he glanced at his twin who was scrutinizing Sam. She took out a vial and handed it to Sam.

 

“We didn’t have time to make very much. Be careful,” she said, brusquely.

 

Sam nodded.

 

***

 

The humming stopped and Sam stepped out into Hell. It was worse than he had imagined, at every step he saw ten people he knew begging him to save them and a hundred people he didn’t know screaming and pleading. His father, Jess, even some half-remembered sense of his mother’s voice haunted him. And Dean. With every step he saw Dean- on meat hooks, being burned, reminding him that he had done this for Sam.

 

Gabriel was beside him, holding his hand and walking steadily and Sam let that trusting touch comfort him and moved as the amulet warmed.

 

Then a chasm came up in front of them- as suddenly as if it had just been formed- and Sam stopped and looked down, it seemed measureless and there was smoke rising up and they would have to climb down into it to find Dean. He took an even tighter hold on Gabriel’s hand and led him down, the other hand finding handholds wherever he could event though the walls of Hell burned his hand from the inside out; Sam felt like his hand had fallen off but he could see that the skin was whole.

 

Then Gabriel let go with a jerk, Sam tried to grab on to him but the smoke rose up like a living creature and curled up around Gabriel and into Sam’s eyes, blinding him for a crucial moment.

 

Then Sam saw Gabriel, lying several feet below him on an outgrowth of the walls of the chasm and calling weakly for help. His voice was fading away and Sam knew with frightening certainty that if he didn’t get that vial to Gabriel right then, Gabriel would die.

 

He rushed down as fast as he could, calling to Gabriel to hold on, just hold on until Sam could get there. Gabriel was breathing so shallowly that Sam wasn’t sure he was breathing at all. Sam dropped heavily to his knees and reached out a hand, and had it wildly knocked away.

 

Gabriel was on one knee in front of him, waving him away blindly with the other Gabriel- the one that had been lying down- held back with one hand and then the other Gabriel dissolved partly into smoke and the blindfold dissolved and black eyes stared out at them and Sam grabbed at Gabriel, the real Gabriel, and pulled him away. The demon snarled at him but had to stay where it was, if it couldn’t tempt Sam to go to it- it failed.

 

“I’m sorry I couldn’t get to you sooner. I couldn’t see, this blindfold won’t come off,” Gabriel said, waving his hands weakly.

 

Then Sam saw Gabriel’s hand- it was withering away wherever it had touched the demon. He pushed Gabriel down, and was vaguely surprised when he got out the vial and his hands were steady. He poured it out over the hand and saw the bone grow back but there wasn’t enough for the skin, in a panic he called up the vestiges of his power and drove it into Gabriel’s hand. His sight blurred and when he came to, Gabriel was holding him with both hands, one was a normal hand and the other felt rough to the touch. But at least it was there.

 

Sam recovered further and realized that Gabriel was shouting at someone to keep away, that Sam wasn’t approaching.

 

Sam struggled up to stand guarding Gabriel and saw the blonde girl from the council. Her eyes were black.

 

“You’re a demon,” Sam said.

 

“Thanks, I hadn’t noticed,” she said.

 

Sam tried to bring up his power but couldn’t, he swayed in place with the effort.

 

“I’m the one who fixed his blindfold so it wouldn’t come off, I just saved him from burning up. Be grateful and come with me,” she said, impatiently, shaking her hair back.

 

“Ruby?” Gabriel said, from behind Sam.

 

“Yes. And I just saved your backside, risking mine! So can we please get on with it? I know a shortcut to where his brother is.” Ruby said.

 

“Alright,” Gabriel said. “But if you’re lying, I will rip you apart myself.” His voice had deepened by the end of the sentence and Sam felt a frisson from the power he had put in it.

 

Ruby snorted but Sam could see that she looked wary. They ran through rooms of red and black and dark green ooze and then they reached a room that seemed to be exactly the same as all the others but Sam could feel the amulet burning into him and he looked around wildly. He couldn’t recognize Dean from the other raw, flayed souls there at first but then he did.

 

He tugged at Dean’s chains and couldn’t get it off, then Gabriel’s power seeped into his hands and strengthened them and the chains splintered into pieces then crumbled into dust. Sam grabbed Dean as he fell down and held him as tightly as he could.

 

Dean said, in a rough voice that broke away into coughs at points, “You’re another one of them aren’t you? I’m not doing it, I’m not going to be a demon’s _student_ ; I know Sammy’s not here.” Sam just held on and wept silently.

 

There was a humming around them and then they were back in the castle.

 

***

 

Sam wandered over to the room where Gabriel was recovering leaving Dean with three healers and Raphael and Israfel supervising. To be precise, they threw him out the door with magic and told him flatly that his magic was interfering with theirs and making a new body practically from scratch was _difficult_.

 

That hand of Gabriel’s was never going to be the same; Sam curled his hands around it and massaged it gently and tried to figure out how to apologize.

 

“Not your fault,” Gabriel told him, “Feel free to go on with that,” he waggled his eyebrows down at their joined hands, “But what I did, I chose it. It’s not your fault I got hurt.”

 

“I shouldn’t have let you come,” Sam said.

 

Gabriel raised an eyebrow, as if to say, ‘could you have stopped me?’ and Sam looked down at the hand that would probably always hurt Gabriel a little and wished he could have.

 

Gabriel raised his other hand and gently flicked Sam’s cheek, “Worry about yourself and your brother, I am…” he looked away and said it so softly that Sam had to strain to hear him, “I would have given a lot more to keep you safe.”

 

Sam kissed Gabriel’s hand, as gently as he could because he didn’t know how to say _I love you_.

 finis.

 

81.

**TW for dub-con**

Gabriel has this habit of curling up into Sam after they have sex. With the height difference it really doesn’t work out. His nose digs into Sam’s side and his feet are bony and he’s too warm.

 

Sam looks at the ceiling, remembers Gabriel stitching Dean up and giving Cas a boost in his power and forces his muscles to relax.

 

The first and only time Sam thought of Jess while they were having sex he had to shove Gabriel off and put his head between his knees so that he didn’t throw up. Gabriel waved off sex and just held him quietly all that night and didn’t ask what was wrong. 

 

From then on, when Gabriel snaps their clothes off (he wanted to do it the human way but Sam said that he preferred this) Sam carefully removes thoughts of Jess before he closes his eyes. He thinks of other women, the waitress that morning who was visibly not wearing a bra or the women on the magazines he’d seen while buying salt the other day.

 

Gabriel once spits out furiously, “You have to be careful. You can’t go around playing the hero with every demon that exists out to get you. I can’t save you from my brother Sam. He’s…he’s so powerful and I can’t.” He looks up at Sam miserably and says, “I can’t lose you.”

 

Sam looks at him, sees the worry clear on his face, and nods once. Gabriel’s face is still wary but he pulls Sam down to kiss him and tell him that he’s such a gigantic ass, in an affectionate tone and doesn’t quite notice how Sam freezes up a moment before he breathes in and steels himself for the kiss.

 

Gabriel says, more than once, half-laughing at himself, “Sam Winchester, how the hell did I fall for you?”

 

And sometimes, just softly, “I love you.”

 

Sam thinks of every time that Dean has lived only because of Gabriel and remembers that they wouldn’t even have a chance at stopping the apocalypse if Gabriel hadn’t helped them and never says, “You killed my brother more times than I could count.”

 

He never says, “I don’t love you.”

 

 

82.

 Supernatural/Garth Nix's Sabriel crossover 

 

“Loki?” Sam asks, frankly dubious about the name.

 

“A fine jester’s name,” Loki says, leaning back against a tree.

 

“A fine trickster’s name, maybe. Is it your name?” Sam says.

 

Loki grins at him. It only adds to Sam’s suspicion but there is something rather engaging about it, and Sam smiles down at him almost involuntarily.

 

“You’re the Abhorsen? Supposed to keep dead spirits dead and all the necromancers down and whatever the hell else it was?” Loki asks him, plucking out two apples he had gotten sometime Sam hadn’t noticed from the bag he had made (out of Charter magic, he was glad to see, but it still made Sam somewhat uneasy) and handing Sam one.

 

“My dad’s the Abhorsen,” Sam says, defiantly.

 

Loki raises an eyebrow and glances pointedly at Sam’s bag, where Sam had put away the seven bells of the Abhorsen after they had escaped the Mordicant, the manlike spirit which was created from human blood, Free Magic and a dead spirit and had sent other formless dead spirits after them. Sam wonders how powerful the necromancer must be to create a spirit that could control those Shadow Hands.

 

Sam debates whether he should really trust this strange man he had found as the _figurehead_ of a _ship_ but those strange gold eyes were so kind he spills out, “My dad sent them to me, at school. I think he’s in trouble. And I don’t know where Dean is, why he didn’t come.”

 

“Dean?” Loki asks, rather gentle under the gruff tone.

 

 “My big brother. He travels with Dad a lot, I don’t know what’s happened to him. I think there’s some sort of great evil, a very powerful necromancer on the loose.” Sam says, and his voice breaks embarrassingly. The panic is catching up with him, he’s only sixteen- if something was powerful enough to defeat Dad _and_ Dean, then what chance did he have of defeating them or rescuing his family?

 

“Calm down,” Loki tells him sharply. He grabs hold of Sam by his forearms and then firmly pulls him down to sit on the ground.

 

“It’s alright. Tell me what happened.” Loki says; he has the tone of someone used to giving orders.

 

Sam rubs a hand across his eyes for a moment, they burn from how little sleep he has gotten the last few days and that is what decides him. He looks at Loki, straight into his eyes and asks, “Will you help me?”

 

Loki tells him, in a funny sort of tone, “Child, I’m cursed, I’m the worst helper you could have.” A shadow passes over his face, breaking the illusion of a carefree ne’er do well.

 

“I’m not a child,” Sam says, and his voice gains force with each word, “I’m the Abhorsen-in-waiting. Will you help me?” he asks again.

 

Loki looks almost surprised as he says, “Yes,” and Sam thinks he’s going to make some sort of joke to break the tension but after a moment’s hesitation, he shakes his head ruefully and grins at Sam.

 

“Let’s get on with it then,” he says, cheerfully, 

 

 

83.

 

Sam hadn’t a clue what it was at first. He thought it might be a side effect from the Cage- that he felt hot at random times. Sometimes when it was really cold. It wasn’t unpleasant; gave him a sense of…a fireside in a comfortable, lived-in home. So he shrugged and enjoyed the warmth when it came.

 

Then there came a time when a werewolf was about to tear into his throat and that warmth tugged at him and deposited him at Gabriel’s side. Gabriel tore into him for being reckless, asked him whether dying the half dozen times he had already wasn’t sufficient, if he had a death wish.

 

Sam asked, “Was that you? That thing. That…cord of ah. Heat. Has it always been you?”

 

Gabriel looked blindsided at that then sulky as he said, “It’s your fault. How the hell am I supposed to know you haven’t gone and gotten yourself killed? So I check up from time to time.”

 

“You are very creepy,” Sam told him frankly, then added, “You could just call.”

 

Gabriel looked infuriated at this, “Right, I should just give you a call while you’re running from a werewolf! I’ll remember that next time.”

 

Then he threw Sam back into his and Dean’s motel room and disappeared. Sam debated calling him back but he was too tired, too annoyed and much too covered in forest debris to deal with Gabriel just then. He went to bed.

 

Later, Gabriel came back and mumbled out his version of an apology, that Sam ran into the strangest things and he needed to see that Sam stayed fine. That sometimes it was just nice, curling his Grace around Sam’s soul and feeling their pulses fall into the same rhythm.

 

Sam kissed him and told him he could.

 

 

84.

 

There’s a window that looks out onto endless fields and it can be opened, but Sam can’t go out. He’s tried.

 

There’s the door that leads to a white bathroom; the walls are white and the tiled floor is white and the sink and the toilet and the bathtub are white porcelain and the showerheads and taps are white as well, even though they feel like steel. It might have been accidental. Knowing Gabriel, the resemblance to a hospital (or a lunatic asylum) was his idea of a joke.

 

There’s the other door that leads into a kitchen, Sam doesn’t cook, but food always appears for him.

 

There’s another door that leads out into a pretty, civilized garden. Sam’s walked hours (as far as he can tell by counting seconds, his watch is long gone) and never found a boundary to lead him out.

 

“You shouldn’t have saved me,” Sam tells him flatly when he comes finally. Gabriel looks at him with his brows drawn together from where he’s leaning against the wooden doorframe. It’s only a few feet away. The room fits Sam perfectly. Large enough that he can spread out without worrying about hitting something, small enough that he isn’t always looking over his shoulder worrying about threats.

 

“It’s what you wanted!” Sam said, frustration creeping into his voice “Dean’s already said, ‘yes’. Let me go and do the same, and it’ll be ‘over with’.” He mimics Gabriel cruelly.

 

Gabriel tells him, as if the words are being dragged from him, “Your brother hasn’t. I’d know if he had, and he hasn’t. I think my.” he pauses for a moment, misery flashing across his face, then goes on, “My siblings have captured him, so they can convince him.”

 

“Torture him,” Sam says, teeth clenched.

 

Gabriel nods. 

 

Sam clenches his hands, “It comes to the same thing, doesn’t it? Dean…he won’t be able to hold out against them forever.”

 

There’s none of Gabriel’s characteristic flamboyance in the way he snaps up a screen and it starts playing some movie and that is the only reason Sam looks at it.

 

“If you say ‘yes,’ that is what is going to happen.” Gabriel tells him, waving at the screen full of people dropping to their knees and choking on their own blood and screaming in pain. Dying.

 

Sam raises his hands then drops them helplessly, “What do I do?”

 

“Rescue him. Stop my brothers, get Lucifer and Michael to stop fighting or lock them up or…” Gabriel has this incredulous expression on his face, as if he can’t believe the words coming out of his own mouth and he breaks down into wild giggles.

 

“We’re all going to die,” he said, still laughing, and the room disappeared and they were surrounded by darkness. Sam jumped as fireworks went off with ‘bangs’ and ‘whooshes’.

 

“Gabriel,” Sam strode over, hesitated a moment before touching him then shook him firmly.

 

The room came back as suddenly as it had gone, Sam awkwardly pointed at Gabriel’s eyes. Gabriel wiped at them and looked surprised to find moisture on them.

 

“We’re going to die,” Gabriel tells him matter-of-factly and almost breaks out into giggles again. It takes him time to recover, he’s snorting into his sleeve to stop the outbreak.

 

Sam is bewildered at Gabriel’s changing mood until Gabriel tells him, “We have to try anyway.”

 

For a split second, they stare at each other and see their own self (a bit blurred, or broken) reflected.

 

 

85.

 

There’s nothing as horrible as watching nymphs fight. Except maybe when they’re trying to start a fight with you.

 

“You can have him. I didn’t want him!” Sam threw out his arms and then winced and pulled them back when two of the nymphs grabbed at him, nails curving out into sharp claws.

 

“He just broke in, and kept hanging around,” he rolled his eyes remembering Gabriel hanging around on Sam’s bed, putting his shoes up no matter how many times Sam told him to stop it; or fuck off. “And…and bringing stuff!” Manuscripts that Sam would swear had perished before the twelfth century, or had never been translated to English; movies of Sam’s favorite books, some of which hadn’t been released yet (a couple of them hadn’t even been picked up by anyone to be made into a film.)

 

“He just kind of made himself useful,” Sam lifted his shoulders in a half-shrug, the time that came to mind was when he and Dean had both been ill, and half out of their minds and hadn’t even been conscious enough to call Bobby or Cas and Gabriel had popped in to be annoying and cured them instead. Or, cured them _too_ , since he was still annoying.

 

The three male nymphs and two female nymphs and the other two nymphs all looked at him with increasing sympathy and Sam felt he should protest but he was exasperated and he told them, “He does this every time. Leaves me in danger and wanders off because he’s bored.”

 

“Fish, this calls for fish. Drown your sadness.” one of them warbled out, a water nymph by the look of him.

 

“You don’t want fish,” another one said, in a whispery voice, this one’s a tree nymph from a reserved forest, Sam remembered her saying so in a snobby tone. She went on “You want fresh sap, with skinned deer.”

 

“You’ve never had skinned deer,” yet another one said incredulously, gravelly voice barely understandable- she’s a stone nymph.

 

Then they’re off again. Sam sighed.

 

  

86.

 

Sam shifted in the wooden chair and tapped his fingers on the expensive wooden table and stared hard at the book open in front of him. He still couldn’t ignore Gabriel’s gaze hanging heavily on him. He uncharacteristically abandoned all of the books he had collected from this section, just left them on the table and walked away. He had no destination; he just walked away as if he could out-walk an Archangel.

 

Gabriel strolled along after him, it astonished Sam that none of the stuff- the _really cool_ stuff- nearby grabbed his attention or distracted him. He just kept looking at Sam with this odd expression on his face; a little worried and a little curious.

 

Finally, Sam just swung around, kicked a chair out and threw himself down on it to make himself relatively comfortable while he found out what Gabriel’s game was. He found himself between two shelves that were parallel to each other and close together; Gabriel had his head tilted and gaze fixed on Sam. He didn’t even blink as he walked backwards and perched on a table. Sam was pretty sure he was going to win this one, Gabriel didn’t have the patience to wait for Sam to look away. Sam had a moment of wondering how he knew that, how he was so freaking certain that Gabriel was impatient the way only a being with almost infinite power could be.   

 

Only moments later Sam was clenching and unclenching his fists in an effort to keep looking at Gabriel. The concerned, gentle gaze was difficult to bear.

 

“What is this, Sam?” Gabriel asked, folding up his legs and gesturing around them.

 

“A library.” Sam said incredulously, what, Gabriel was here to make fun of the library?

 

“Is it?” Gabriel asked, waving one arm up to the ceiling. The ceiling which looked blurred, Sam blinked and it came into focus.

 

Sam stood up slowly, bracing himself on the table, and looked around him- books on shelves, the usual, ‘Silence, Please’ signs, “Yeah, of course it is. What else would it be?”

 

Gabriel’s eyes flickered around the room and then came back to rest on Sam, “Think, Sam,” he urged.

 

Sam didn’t want to; instinctively he wanted to reject thinking about the library. He gripped the table so hard it hurt and his heart sunk.

 

“What is it? What is it that I don’t want to remember?” Sam asked, his tone panicked despite his best efforts.

 

Gabriel kept looking at him.

 

Sam looked down at the floor as he tried to remember, to think. He started off shakily, “Before this, I was… I was somewhere at the back, or no.” He shook his head, “I was with Jess, I couldn’t have been here. You saw I was with Jess…”

 

Sam looked up, horrified, and whispered, “You couldn’t have seen. You weren’t around when I knew Jess.” Sam sank down into his seat. “How do I remember you there?” he yells.

 

Gabriel looked pained, “Think, Sam, you have to think.”

 

“This isn’t a library,” Sam said, pinching the bridge of his nose to ward off a headache. “But the books, I’ve been reading so many books. How…?” he couldn’t remember any of them; he only remembered his life. Things that have happened in his life and things that he wanted and the things he had and the things he left behind. He remembers…oh fuck, he remembered Dad dying and Dean almost dying. Dean must be frantic out there.

 

He looked up at Gabriel, eyes pleading to be told that he’s wrong, “We’re in my mind aren’t we?”

 contd in next part.

 

87.

 

Gabriel nodded, “What do you remember?”

 

“I…” Sam rubbed his forehead, “I remember Dad dying. That was a couple of weeks ago wasn’t it?”

 

Gabriel’s eyes widened, he said, “Sam, think. Think very carefully.”

 

Sam blinked back the pain at the back of his head and did. He shrugged, “That’s it, isn’t it? What am I missing? What do you remem…”

 

His eyes closed for a moment and he pressed his lips together as it hit him, “I hadn’t met you then.”

 

Sam knew with certainty he didn’t want to remember. “Does it matter?” he demanded, “Shouldn’t we be trying to get out?”

 

Gabriel swung himself off the table and walked over and his hand came to rest gently on Sam’s forearm.

 

“What the hell do you think is keeping you in here?” Gabriel asked.

 

The pain increased, his head felt like it was going to burst, Sam bent over and tucked his head in between his hands, wanting it to stop.

 

“Gabriel, please.” he gasped out, though he doesn’t know why he expects the Trickster to help him.

 

“I can’t. I want to help but I can’t. You’re doing this to yourself!” Gabriel yelled, his grip on Sam tightening.

 

“The building’s crashing,” Sam heard Gabriel say through the ringing in his ears. Then Gabriel pulled him along and they ran, Sam couldn’t see where he was running but he trusted Gabriel to…

 

They stopped and Sam turned to Gabriel to ask him, “Why Gabriel? That isn’t your name. It can’t be- there aren’t any Tricksters called, ‘Gabriel’.”

 

Gabriel handed him a handkerchief and gestured toward the blood dripping out of his nose. Sam thanked him with a nod and said, “Let me guess- ‘think, Sam.’”

 

A shadow of a grin crossed Gabriel’s face.

 

Sam did, not quite the way Gabriel had expected, “Memories,” he said at length, “I don’t want to remember, do I? That’s why I’m stuck like this.”

 

Gabriel nodded. Sam looked away, into the distance- their surroundings were changing constantly, now an endless ocean and then an endless desert. ‘Gabriel,’ he thought to himself, he had to remember who this guy was; why Sam knew him as ‘Gabriel’ instead of a Trickster; one of the many monsters he and Dean had killed. He breathed in and focused.

 

When he opened his eyes, they were standing on a sea of tar. “You killed Dean. Then you stuck us in TV land so I’d say yes to the Devil.”

 

Sam braced himself for a fight automatically, spreading his legs and clenching his fists, “Is that what happened? I agreed to be the devil’s Vessel and I’m trying to forget it?”

 

Gabriel’s eyes widened as he exclaimed, “No!” and Sam felt like he could breathe again.

 

“Sam. Look, it might be better if you don’t remember,” Gabriel said, unhappy about saying it but still saying it, “You…you’ll probably die if you remember everything. You’ll go insane.”

 

Sam said only one word, “Dean?”

 

Gabriel’s mouth quirked down, “He’d get over it. He’d have to. Sam, it was so bad. You were, you were… _are_ hurting so badly.”

 

Sam blinked and it was like he had been seeing things through a glass of water and now the glass had been removed, “You’re in love with me.”

 

Gabriel flinched away and said, “We don’t talk about it.”

 

“Do I…?” Sam’s voice trailed off. The wistful, almost nostalgic look on Gabriel’s face answered him. Sam had loved him.

 

“You want me to stay here?”

 

“I want you to have some peace.” Gabriel said, sounding tired.

 

“I can’t hide here forever.” Sam told him.

 

Gabriel told him urgently, “Sam, you saved the world. You were so brave.” His voice trembled the tiniest bit as he went on, “You deserve a rest.”

 

Sam said, “I’m doing this. You with me or not?”

 

He told himself it didn’t make any difference one way or the other but his heart warmed up, fear pushed away a little further, when Gabriel took his hand with a wry smile.

 finis.

 

88.

 

Humans have wings too. Some of them anyway.

 

Incorporeal, they’re like the vestigial organs of the soul. Even harder to see than souls- usually only even vaguely visible when someone is being born or dying.

 

So obviously the Winchesters had to break the rule. Their wings were visible to any angel. Gabriel was sure that Castiel stared at Dean’s face so fixedly so that he wouldn’t end up staring at his wings (beautiful, powerful condor’s wings; almost pure white.)

 

Sam’s are dark blue hawk’s wings, almost black in places; wings of the messenger. Gabriel resists the urge to touch them. It’s easy, he tells himself. He has the entire world as his playground. Biggest chocolate fountain in the world? In his kitchen. Biggest swimming pool, with fountains and a miniature waterfall? In his backyard. Have a day off to see the planet made of diamonds. Or go off and play connect the dots in the Medusa Cascade.

 

It isn’t easy, even when he’s miserable and hates Sam and hates himself it isn’t easy.

 

Then there’s the day he almost dies and Sam’s wings curl around him protectively (Gabriel remembers these are the wings of guardianship) and honestly, man, there’s a limit to which you can push an archangel yeah? Gabriel runs the back of two knuckles gently over them and they surround him completely for a moment before jerking back in a hurry.

 

Gabriel is somewhat surprised and somewhat amused to see Sam looking intrigued. He grins up at Sam and looks forward to the treat he’s going to get.  

 

 

89.

 

Sam breathes in, fingertips spread out over Gabriel’s forehead and when he breathes out he has the blueprint of the world spread out before him for his consideration. Every second that passes reminds him what it had been like to drink the achuma and hold all this power for his own, without needing an archangel to call it from the earth.

 

In these moments he can imagine the temptation to set oneself up as God, rule all the foolish people for their own good; stop them from ruining themselves with their petty wars. In these moments he can imagine what the enemy feels. Gabriel’s warm endless archangel consciousness ran through him and pulled him back out before he could repeat his mistakes again.

 

With his other hand he brings the enemy down from the air where they are powerful to the ground where they snarl in fear and breaks them into so much dust with his symbols of power; no one else’s has ever worked for him. It’s one of the many reasons he is despised as much as he is needed. Gabriel had been the only one who was fascinated even when he disliked Sam. Gabriel’s clever irreverence, so different from the contemptuous solemnity of all the other old ones, had fascinated Sam in his turn. 

 

It’s Gabriel who draws away and breaks their connection, and never even mentions Sam’s old addiction; kind in his own peculiar style. Instead he holds Sam up when he collapses in his exhaustion and grins at him and says, “Well, kiddo, I guess we just saved the world.”

 

Sam’s mind is still aching for power but just a little less than before. He awkwardly bends to bury his face in Gabriel’s neck and laugh.

 

 

90.

 

His wrist hurt from all the kneading and blending needed for baking food that can be sold. His back hurt because there weren’t any chairs that were comfortable for someone his size; even if they felt great in the store, soon as he got them home they seemed to develop knobs and hard corners. His eyes hurt because wearing spectacles was a fucking pain and he didn’t want to.

 

His soul hurt because that’s what souls did. They _felt_ , they _needed_ so intensely without even knowing what they needed.

 

All the aches and pains of being human.

 

Gabriel’s mouth twisted into something unpleasant. Four years of this had reconciled him somewhat; but what was four years to millennia of being able to command almost anything in the world?

 

He looked out through the window to where Sam was sitting on the porch, working. As he looked Sam brushed away his hair from in front of his eyes and drew his brows together in a thoughtful frown. Gabriel isn’t sure Sam was worth it, choosing to Fall.

 

Gabriel is sure that given the same choice a hundred times, he’d choose to Fall every time.

 

 

91.

 

“Your car talks.” Sam told Gabriel.

 

“Yeah, I noticed,” Gabriel patted the side of it, mouth curling up and eyes twinkling mischievously.

 

“Your car _talks_ , Gabriel! In my head!” Sam stepped away from both man and car and gestured at it, “That’s…that is so creepy.”

 

Gabriel frowned and spread an arm protectively on the car, “Manners, boyo. She just saved your life. Have some respect.”

 

The car pulsed out its hurt and Sam found himself giving a faltering apology without really knowing what he was doing. He wondered how the hell his boyfriend had been hiding a talking car for the past three months when they’ve been sharing a house.

 

Then he wondered, “Where the hell did you _get_ a talking car? I didn't even know you had a car.” Sam said, sitting down on their front steps because his legs felt just a little weak.

 

“You didn’t have it in college. You didn’t rent garage space there.” Sam went on.

 

Gabriel looked slightly uncomfortable, “You remember just before college ended I wanted to know about my family? How they died and everything? So I asked the orphanage?”

 

Sam nodded; he remembered calming Gabriel down with kisses and chocoate and promising him it'd be fine.

 

Gabriel gestured to the car. Sam looked blank for a moment then said, “What, they were aliens? Not that it wouldn’t explain a lot…” he trailed off, pointedly looking at Gabriel.

 

Gabriel snorted, “They were working on alien tech for the government, I think. I figured I’d find out what the fuss had been. And now look at my baby.” He smiled proudly as he patted the car again. The car hummed, seeming pleased too.

 

Sam tried to fill in the gaps of what Gabriel hadn’t said and then, “You stole a top secret car from a top secret government lab?” he asked, sounding almost resigned, because Gabriel always did this. He had stolen half the equipment from his college Physics lab because they wouldn’t let him in during holidays and he took shelves of books from all the libraries he frequented. He called it ‘borrowing’ but he never did give anything back.

 

“I borrowed it,” Gabriel indignantly exclaimed.

 

“No! I stole him,” the car chimed in at the same time, just as loudly. Sam had his hands over his ears before he remembered it wasn’t any use, because the car spoke in his _head_.

 

“Volume.” he sternly told them both. The car pulsed out an apology and offered him a head massage- to the inside of his head. Sam politely declined.

 

Gabriel came and sat beside him. After a moment, he nudged an elbow into Sam’s stomach. By degrees he wormed himself into Sam’s arms.

 

“I was going to tell you, I just wanted to do it some way it wouldn’t freak you out.” Gabriel said, into his chest.

 

“Some way a talking car wouldn’t freak me out? Good luck with that one,” Sam grumbled, curling a hand into Gabriel’s hair and caressing him.

 

Gabriel laughed and asked, “What did you think when it told you to ‘duck’?”

 

“Figured it was haunted, man,” Sam admitted.

 

Gabriel snorted, “Ghosts aren’t real, Sammy.”

 

Then he felt Sam stiffening up and pulled back to see Sam looking like a deer in headlights.

 

Uncertainly, he asked, “Sam? Ghosts aren’t real, right? How can they be?”  

 

“What, a talking car is fine but you don’t believe in ghosts?” Sam demanded.

 

Gabriel kept looking at him in that same curious manner so Sam said, “Uh. So.” and settled down to explain the story of his life. 

 

  

92. 

**TW for character death**

 

Fairytales were for other people. Sam hadn’t needed Dean telling him; he knew long before he was twelve that fairy tales didn’t fit his life. Dean had just helped him figure out that it was a horror story.

 

Dean was dead now. Lucifer had resurrected him more than once, as many times as it took for Sam to stop screaming, stop banging at the inside of his own mind- the walls of his prison. The only thing that hurt anymore (a pinprick compared to the devastation he used to be able to feel) was that Dean would never know that Sam hadn’t said ‘yes’ of his own volition; that he had been tricked into this. He wouldn’t have betrayed Dean- not like that.

 

The only thing that felt remotely good anymore was when the Trickster visited. Now that Sam was thoroughly broken, Lucifer didn’t hang around in him too often. The Trickster came sometimes, talked with him, yelled at him, cursed him and his self righteousness. Kissed him, and put tendrils of his power in Sam’s mind to stroke the raw, bleeding insides (not repair him, he was beyond repairing. Just to dim the hurt for a little bit) and stroked his hair.

 

So when Sam figured out that he still had one way of defying Lucifer, and maybe, just maybe give the world another chance, he did everything else he needed to but stood at the last step waiting for the Trickster. He never did get the chance to say goodbye to anyone else, to Dean or Bobby or Cas or Dad.

 

He kissed the Trickster goodbye and walked away, eyes closed so he could pretend he wasn’t doing this. Just before he took the final step, his eyes flashed open to see the world he was leaving behind (broken, barren and all his fault) and he thought he saw the Trickster make an aborted movement; as if to stop him, or hold him. Then he fell into the pits of Hell to be torn apart into so many pieces that even the Devil and all his demons couldn’t put him back together.

 

 

93.

 

Sam skims a hand along the top of his laptop. He’s surprised that it moves when he tells it to. He stares down at his hands and he sees the same thing he always does- rough brown hands with calluses from guns and pens and a laundry list of other things.

 

**

 

“You could use me,” Dean had said, stepping in front of Sam.

 

“I’ve spent an awful lot of time down here doing what I shouldn’t,” Gabriel’s lips had curled up and his voice had been as much amused as it was bitter when he said, “You’re too pure for me. It’s Sam or nothing.”

 

“How do I know you won’t give me over to your brother?” Sam had demanded.

 

Gabriel had raised an eyebrow and lounged back against the wall. Sam had warred with himself for one long moment and then finally nodded.

 

**

 

It…having Gabriel in him, was nothing that he could ever have imagined or could describe. He had been a prisoner in his own mind, his body had held so much power that he had been sure it would rip open.

 

He had been the closest he would ever be to anyone living or dead.

 

Sam flexes his fingers and wonders if Gabriel had done it on purpose- leaving behind a little bit of himself so that Sam would always be aware of him. Like a tune at the back of his head. Like any moment someone else would lift his hand and remake the world with a snap of his fingers.  

 

 

94.

 

The big things don’t really matter. It’s nice, standing on top of the Himalayas, or having authentic Japanese food and it had made him giddy with glee to be able to visit Venice with a snap of Gabriel’s fingers.

 

The other stuff is just… nicer. When Gabriel stays at night (not often and not long because he doesn’t sleep) or when he touches Sam exactly where Sam likes to be touched because he’s mapped out all of Sam or when he pops up in the morning with coffee and Sam’s favorite breakfast.

 

That’s the stuff Sam will miss when Gabriel finally gets bored and leaves.

 

 

95.

 

The One Where Sam and Gabriel Are Housecats.

 

Or to be more precise, Sam was a housecat. Gabriel was the cat who lurked around outside Dean and Cas’ apartment waiting to pounce on their feet or Cas’ characteristically untied laces. Or Sam.

 

Sam hissed and spat at him and tried to claw out those golden eyes (Sam hated those eyes, his green ones were so much better) but to no avail, Gabriel _would_ keep nipping his tail and stealing his food and opening up the window from outside (like magic, Sam didn’t know how he did it) so that Dean and Cas blamed Sam for it and scolded him. Sam gave up trying to explain that it wasn’t him, it was _Gabriel_ and just showed his teeth and then turned his back on them and meowed his anger at the wall instead- it listened about as well. Stupid humans.

 

Then Gabriel got hurt. The scared, weepy kids blurted out that they were just playing baseball. The cat had just jumped out at the ball out of nowhere and the bat had hit him. Then followed a long, long period where Gabriel didn’t do much of anything. He had always been a small cat but this was the first time he _looked_ small.

 

Cas wrapped him in white stuff and Dean tried to coax him to eat and Gabriel just stayed in the apartment which was weird. Sam did his own bit by not throwing out the other cat. And he might’ve groomed Gabriel a little because his pretty orange fur was becoming matted and everyone knew that grooming improved health.

 

Sam tolerated Gabriel while he was getting back up onto his paws. He curled up around Gabriel to sleep because the nights were cold and gave him some of his own food since Gabriel was weaker than a just-born kitten. Sam had no idea why Cas and Dean were so happy about it all until he realized they wanted Gabriel to stay.

 

Sam hissed and clawed up the couch and hid under the bed that entire day until he heard Dean telling Cas, “C’mon Cas, he’s lived outside for his whole life. We’ll feed him and all but you can see Sam doesn’t like him.”

 

Sam purred mentally, he had known Dean would give in.  

 

Then he saw Gabriel wriggling in beside him, he shifted back and made sure his tail wasn’t in claw distance of the other cat. Sam looked at him warily, wondering what tricks he was up to this time. The other cat clawed half heartedly at the floor.

 

After a bit Gabriel meowed so softly that Sam had to perk up his ears to hear him, “I had litter mates you know, I wasn’t always alone.”

 

Sam wasn’t sure why Gabriel was saying this but he mewed once because Gabriel sounded so sad and that was as unnatural as Gabriel lying stiff and quiet while people stuck needles in him.

 

“They fought and fought and I couldn’t take it anymore so I ran away,” Gabriel meowed out.

 

“It’s fun. It is fun, being able to do whatever you like and go wherever you like!” Gabriel purred, suddenly changing his tone but the purr was half-hearted at best.

 

Sam hesitated for a moment then meandered over, not quite looking at Gabriel, and then pounced on him and rolled him over and rubbed his nose against Gabriel’s. Gabriel pushed him away but not with any force.

 

“You can stay but don’t bite my tail,” Sam warned Gabriel.

 

Gabriel nipped his nose in reply and then licked his ears. Sam gave it up as a bad job and lay there while Gabriel groomed him until Dean and Cas found them sleeping there with Gabriel sprawled all over Sam.   

  

 

96.

 

Gabriel tried, he really did. After the last Tuesday in Broward County, after he couldn’t get that stubborn kid to just give up, he went back into Sam’s past as far as he could where the angels wouldn’t sit up and take notice of someone interfering.

 

He tracked through Sam’s past trying to find the one moment which he could use to change everything- to make it so that the Apocalypse had never happened.

 

He saw the baby at a year old, fussing about food and trying to grab at Gabriel’s wings with all babies’ intuition of where they were. He saw the thirteen year old pretending to be sullen to hide how scared he was. He saw the eighteen year old trudging off, alone for the first time, turning back more than once before reaching his destination. He saw the boy growing up into a happy, confident, beautiful man.

 

Throughout it all the only way he had of stopping it was killing Sam. Not just his body but his soul as well, obliterating his existence.

 

Gabriel didn’t even know why he couldn’t. He’d killed so many- so many humans, so many of his own siblings on his Father’s orders- what was one more? What did it matter that Sam’s eyes became so very green when he was happy or that when he smiled, his dimples made him seem even younger than he was?

 

So Gabriel flew off into his proper time and gave Sam his brother back and dismissed them so he could pretend that he hadn’t just chosen to save one kid over the entire world.

 

 

97.

 

In Which Gabriel is a (stripper) Angel.

 

Sam prided himself on not being the partying bisexual stereotype. This made this entire thing where he sneaked out to see a man stripping every Friday rather… awkward.

 

The first time had been because the constant digs of being a prude had got to him so he went along with a bunch of guys to a strip club. And there was this guy; the main stripper of the night. He had on something skintight with red wings attached to the back of them and gold glitter shimmered on his cheeks from the light on stage. Sam took one look into golden eyes half shadowed by a flimsy mask sizing up the room, and fell like a rock in water.

 

Then the guy casually pulled off his clothes. His hips moved lazily to the rhythm of whatever pop song was going as he tore the flimsy one piece apart and revealed red panties. One of the boys with Sam told him, knowingly, “Loki’s good.”

 

“Loki? Strange name for a stripper.” Sam managed to say as he paid for his drink. He rushed out after that but he knew that he’d be back.

 

Even he realized how creepy he was being but he couldn’t help himself. He wanted to know what that cheeky grin would taste like, whether there was stubble under the glitter, whether his voice would turn hoarse with arousal under Sam’s hands.

 

Like every Friday, Sam chose a single chair in a shadowed area and nursed a drink and made himself look just dangerous enough that people passed him by automatically without feeling scared enough to call for a bouncer. It was something he’d learnt from observing his Dad and Dean.

 

Unlike every night, when Loki came onto the stage he didn’t glance around the room, his gaze settled on Sam with a rather mocking quality. His eyes stayed on Sam as he took off his clothes (a short dress that was all frills and his usual red wings) and strutted around on the stage. Sam’s breath came faster and his cock was half hard by now in spite of the sick feeling in his stomach.

 

He was hardly aware of shrugging helplessly when Loki cocked an eyebrow at him and teased a finger down the crotch of his panties (frilled pink ones today)- they guy hadn’t taken off his underwear before; none of the strippers at this club did. The gaze took on a more distant, thoughtful quality.

 

Sam was still shaky when a rough, oddly attractive voice murmured near his ear, “You gave up a good thing kiddo, I don’t offer that to many guys. It’s what you came here for isn’t it?”

 

Sam turned his head and found himself nearly nose to nose with Loki, “I came here to see you, yeah.” he admitted, and cursed his shaky voice and the renewed curl of arousal in his stomach.

 

Loki suddenly moved back and looked at him with a curious expression on his face. A moment later, he’d pulled up a chair and was sitting on it backwards with his hands folded on the back. It wasn't as weird as Sam would have imagined, seeing Loki in a shirt and worn jeans, only the stubborn remnants of glitter on him.  He was still looking at Sam and it took effort for Sam to keep from squirming as Loki asked, “You’ve been coming here for weeks?”

 

Sam nodded and his hand tightened around his glass on reflex.

 

“To see me?”

 

Sam said, “Yeah,” and his voice was embarrassingly sincere.

 

Loki curled a hand over Sam’s hand on his glass and smoothly lifted it away to frown at it, “Beer? You could have better taste,” in a tone that was self-deprecating under the drawl.

 

“Loki…” Sam said, half-questioningly, the name sounding odd on his tongue even though it rolled smoothly in his mind.

 

Loki had the rest of the glass in one swallow and then set it down slowly as he said, “Loki’s a stage name. My name’s Gabriel.”

 

He looked at Sam and grinned at him as he got out of his chair slowly, sinuously, showing himself off. Then he flourished his fingers and held out a hand to Sam, “Come and see the rest of me,” and it was the tiny bit of uncertainty under his brash confidence that made Sam want to. He grasped the hand.

 

“Gabriel,” he said, testing it out and the name spilled out easily.

 

  

98.

 

Sam blinked at Gabriel; the jacket he was wearing was a dress on him.

 

Gabriel twirled around and then raised a finger to his ear and said, in a high pitched voice, “How do I look?”

 

Sam opened and closed his mouth once and then frowned, “Did you just copy Audrey Hepburn?”  

 

Dean slammed open the door and came in belting out “The walls start shaking, earth was quaking. My mind was aching, we were making it,” he paused then let loose with, “And you shook me all night long!”

 

He set down the pizza and beer he was carrying then turned around and stopped with his mouth still open when he saw Gabriel, “Is that your jacket?” he asked Sam, voice colored with disbelief.

 

Sam looked at it carefully and then said, “Yeah, I think it is.”

 

Gabriel snapped his fingers and disappeared. He took the jacket with him.

 

***

 

The next time, it was one of Sam’s uglier shirts that Gabriel stole. The time after that was yet another jacket. Sam eventually got everything back (even though Gabriel took other things in their place) so he just shrugged and put up with it and kissed Gabriel when he was being particularly annoying.

 

Sam blamed the tricky case they had been on, and his lack of sleep, for the fact that it took him three weeks to notice that Gabriel wasn’t just being annoying for the sake of it.

 

He came back to his and Dean’s motel room one night, and was transported to the doorstep of Gabriel’s place when he stepped through the door. He shrugged off the mild sick feeling that method of travel still gave him and took the stairs three at a time to reach the bedroom. He was greeted by the sight of Gabriel in bed sprawled on his front, snoring muffled by his face being buried in one of Sam’s shirts.

 

He eased himself down so he wouldn’t disturb Gabriel and curled around him carefully, suppressing the urge to just hold him tight and not let go. 

 

 

99.

 

Sam keeps mementos. Every time Gabriel visits he leaves debris behind him, like a hurricane or something. Mostly it’s just candy wrappers or something like that. Sometimes it’s a manuscript or a DVD.

 

He used to just stuff them in the front chain of one of his bags but then bought a box a couple of months in. He can’t help the grin that spreads over his face as he realizes that the box is pretty much full and that he’s going to have to get another. Who knows, eventually, he might even stop keeping count.

 

 

100.

 

Sam bit down on the tattoo on Gabriel’s wrist, the one that meant Gabriel was _his_. Gabriel gasped and then said, “Sam, please,” voice wrecked. Sam settled down to mouth the spot he had bit and flicked out his tongue over it…and woke up to Gabriel throwing popcorn at the tv.

 

Sam looked thoughtfully at Gabriel until Gabriel noticed that Sam was awake and looked down at him with a hint of query. Sam curled his fingers around the hand Gabriel had been throwing popcorn with and asked, “What do you think of tattoos?” well aware that he wouldn’t have dared ask if he weren’t still half asleep.

 

The muscles of Gabriel’s arm tensed up for a long moment and then relaxed, “Not much. You?”

 

Sam brushed his lips across the wrist he had been dreaming of and didn’t say anything.

 

 

101.

 

“Yes, but,” Sam pauses and looks heavenwards for understanding, “You’re a were _cat._ ”

 

Gabriel and his golden eyes (that make so much _sense_ now) light up in amusement, “Yeah, kiddo, I think I noticed that sometime in the last thirty five years.”

 

“I’m a weredog, Gabriel,” Sam snaps.

 

Gabriel quirks up one eyebrow and made a show of looking Sam up and down, “More of an overlarge puppy if you ask me.”

 

Sam splutters and says, “Yes but a cat and a dog, how does that work?”

 

Gabriel beckons him with one finger, Sam leans down, Gabriel murmurs, “Like this,” and pulls him by his shirt collar into a kiss, warm and rough and arousing as everything is with Gabriel. That’s the end of that conversation.

 

Sam brings it up again a few days later, when he can’t get a plastic packet open and he throws it to Gabriel in frustration and Gabriel _changes,_ just a little- eyes slitting up, upper part of his nose pulling back, teeth becoming sharp enough that it’s a seconds work to tear away the plastic cover daintily- and Sam has speculated before on what weres have those features, in the whirlwind seven months they’ve gone from barely putting up with each other to living together, but now he can’t believe how blind he was.

 

“Everyone says it, that cats and dogs can’t stand each other.” Sam says, a little defensively, trying to justify not guessing immediately.

 

Gabriel throws the packet at him and Sam catches it and nods his thanks, “Everyone says your palm falls off if you have a little alone time, if you know what I mean,” Gabriel leers at Sam’s crotch, “Don’t mean it’s true, Sambo. Just ask your brother.”

 

It’s Sam who hauls him in for a kiss this time; once Gabriel is started on this line he can go on forever. His mind has an unlimited supply of disturbing and dirty thoughts that can give Sam nightmares. 

 

Sam isn’t the one who brings it up the next time, it’s Dean who is well meaning and spectacularly wrong as always. Everything Dean does is on a massive scale so it isn’t surprising this would be too, Sam amends when he isn’t quite so annoyed.

 

‘This’ is slamming into Sam and Gabriel’s apartment when Sam isn’t here, deciding that Gabriel hasn’t told Sam about being a cat and proceeding to shift his form and have a squabble with Gabriel all over the apartment.

 

“You broke my laptop,” Sam growls at Dean, literally growls because the _change_ is hovering, responding to Sam’s anger at his home being trashed and his hurt lover brother and wanting to happen.   

 

Dean sort of shrugs with a hangdog look, “Sorry man, I really thought…”

 

Sam gets it, he does, neither he nor Dean have the best past with Gabriel and Gabriel lies. It’s just what he does and Sam’s going to need years to break him away from that particular habit, if it’s going to happen. But.

 

“I trust him. He’s…this, with him, this is it. I know I said so with…with Jess, but this time, I’m not twenty, and I’m not a naïve kid. I’m going to spend the rest of my life with Gabriel.” Sam shrugs now and raises both hands, palm out, meaning- ‘you’re going to have to deal with it,’ because the alternative is breaking away from his brother and that’s no alternative at all. Dean is all the family he has.

 

Dean looks like he’s going to protest but after a moment he scrubs a hand through his hair and looks resigned, if not quite tolerant yet. It’s enough for Sam.

 

 

102.

 

Gabriel flicked something at Dean that hit his forehead and then vanished, “Never knock on Death's door: ring the bell and run away! Death really hates that!” he proclaimed with the air of quoting someone.

 

“Dude, I’m not prank calling Death.” Dean said flatly.

 

Gabriel cocked an eyebrow at him and said, “I will then.” With a snap of his fingers, he held Dean’s phone and by the time Dean had recovered enough to try and get it back (an enterprise doomed at the start) Gabriel had already sent Death three missed calls and two voicemails on his cell phone and filled up the message tape on his landline, all of the messages consisting mostly of ‘Sam’ and ‘Cage’.

 

When Death appeared, he looked just a little more like a bird of prey than he usually did. Gabriel, naturally, took it as an excuse to bring up old memories that made Death twitchy. Dean just stayed out of their lines of sight while Death was elegantly sarcastic at Gabriel and Gabriel was bitingly honest at Death.

 

“You owe me,” Gabriel finished as smoothly as if he hadn’t just been describing the many assistants that Death technically, if you looked at the records, didn’t have. As if he hadn’t implied how easily there could be a check up on that, and how difficult things could get for Death.

 

Death smiled, a curving up of the lips that didn’t signify amusement so much as hunger, “You’ve learnt insolence, Gabriel. Is that what you spent all that time down here for?”

 

When Gabriel didn't answer verbally (he grinned, bright and brittle) Death murmured, with distaste, “You’ve died too. You have my taint on you.” He looked over Gabriel, as if he could read his life, past, present and future, with one glance, “You blame me for not helping you.”

 

Gabriel didn’t even blink, just stood as still and cold and immoveable as any mountain.

 

Death looked thoughtfully at Gabriel, “I do owe you. Are you going to spend that on him?” the ‘him’ was said gravely and when Death says something gravely- it’s pretty damn grave.

 

Gabriel nodded once, and the sharpness of the motion brought into focus what had been buzzing at the back of Dean’s mind, that Gabriel had been a soldier, a _general_ , he had negotiated wars and he was negotiating one for Sam.

 

Dean isn’t sure that this is what he should be choosing for Sam, but it’s years since he’s been sure about much at all and this looks like it’s about as good as it’s gonna get.

 

 

103.

 

It’s not so much a relationship as Gabriel getting curious and Sam getting curious and the two of them satiating their curiosity.

 

It was difficult for Sam not to be curious- because Gabriel just threw it in their faces, didn’t he? Every time Sam saw Gabriel, he’d be boasting about what a sex god he was, or he’d have a couple of hot people draped all over him or he’d be lazily stretching his arms up over his head so that flashes of skin showed where his shirt rode up. So Sam let his gaze linger a little longer.

 

Gabriel had been curious about the Winchesters from the start- who wouldn’t be? These guys were going to bring about the end of the world. So he had been keeping an eye on them. Then Sam turned out to be terrifyingly (heart wrenchingly) like Lucifer and, at the same time, nothing at all like him and Gabriel couldn’t _stop_ looking at him.

 

After that there are rough touches and rougher words and skin against skin and lips against lips. But it doesn’t mean anything. Really.

 

 

104.

snippet from a selkie!AU

 

Sam knows he shouldn’t be here, watching Gabriel walk knee deep into the sea with the inky black skin in his arms. He had never been too good with rules unfortunately. Then Gabriel turns around and Sam ducks down onto his knees, although Gabriel didn’t appear to have seen him.

 

Sam doesn’t know how he stops himself from gasping when Gabriel flourishes the skin like a cloak, black part outwards and Sam can see what is on the other side. They were like wings, glittering golden feathers lined up in no order and Gabriel raised his arms and they fluttered up like so many pieces of pirate’s treasure. Then he shrugged back and they settled arched up and out. Slowly they mold into his naked, tanned frame, one golden bit after another and some time later an inky black seal wades off.

 

Sam doesn’t know how long he kneels there, aroused and sick to his stomach. He wants to steal that skin and burn it and that he can feel this way and betray Gabriel, even in his thoughts, burns like lead in his stomach. 

 

 

105.

 

Gabriel has tried all his best come ons on Sam by now. He’s gotten various responses- mostly by way of eyebrows (very expressive eyebrows those) or sighs. Gabriel does consider the fact that this is because most of his lines involve chemistry then dismisses it, who wouldn’t have a hoot with, ‘You’re pure Sodium and I’m oxygen and we are going to create an explosion in my bed,’?

 

Sam apparently, stick-in-the-mud that he was. Gabriel’s also considered whether being a killjoy with a hardon for books is part of the job description for being the head librarian at their school.

 

“You’d look hot with glasses,” he offered as a last ditch try, leaning over the librarian’s desk, this was his usual spot nowadays when he wasn’t working.

 

There was the sigh, “I don’t need glasses,” Sam said.

 

“All librarians need glasses, kiddo,” Gabriel said and crowed in triumph when Sam’s lips quirked upwards.

 

Of course, then Sam kicked him out, telling him kindly that he was making too much noise for the library and should really be setting a better example for his students. It was alright, Gabriel went off whistling, happy that he was obviously making his way into Sam’s affections.

 

It wasn’t a surprise at all when Sam finally agreed to have coffee with him a month later.

 

“Wanted to make me work for it did you?” Gabriel asked, trying to sound disapproving when he was ecstatic.

 

Sam grinned down at him and his dimples made Gabriel want to stroke his cheeks, “Nah. Just wanted to see how many cheesy pick up lines you actually had. More than Dean even, he was kinda impressed.”

 

Gabriel was insulted, very insulted. He’d be properly insulted later, when Sam wasn’t looking at Gabriel’s lips as if he were considering kissing him.

 


End file.
